Saint Bernard On consideration. Tr. by George Lewis

SAINT BERNARD

ON CONSIDERATION

TRANSLATED BY

GEORGE LEWIS M.A.

BALLIOL COLLEGE OXFORD: RECTOR OF 1COMB
AUTHOR OF c AN OXFORD PARISH PRIEST

OXFORD
AT THE CLARENDON PRESS

1908

6X

HENRY FROWDE, M.A.

PUBLISHER TO THE UNIVERSITY OF OXFORD

LONDON, EDINBURGH
NEW YORK AND TORONTO

HISTORICAL INTRODUCTION

ONLY some six years had passed since the death of
Gregory VII when St. Bernard was bora (A.D. 1091), just
two years before Anselm was consecrated Archbishop of
Canterbury. The echoes of the thunders of the great reform
ing Pope had scarce died away, and the memory of the
uncompromising struggle between him and the Emperor
Henry IV was still fresh in the minds of men. Under his
direction the Church of Rome had taken enormous strides
towards that absolutism and universal supremacy, both in
things temporal and spiritual, which was to reach its climax
under Innocent III (A.D. 1198-1216), when papal power
was laps greater than ever before or ever since. It was
the of the Crusades, and of the rise of the Military

R< s Orders. The intellect of Europe was beginning

to < n. The popular story of the discovery of the original
manuscript of Justinian s famous Pandects, or digest of Roman
law, in the ruins of Amalfi is discredited, 1 but the study of
civil law was vigorously pursued, and the profession was one
of great honour. Canon law received no less attention. The
vast materials, after twenty-four years labour, were formed
into a body by Gratian, and published at Rome about 1 140.
The study of this code became of course obligatory upon
ecclesiastical judges. It produced a new class of legal prac
titioners, or canonists ; of whom a great number added, like
their brethren the civilians, their illustrations and commentaries

1 See Hallam, Literary History, vol. I. p. 62,
A 2

4 Historical Introduction

for which the obscurity and discordance of many passages,
more especially in Gratian s collection of canons, papal epistles,
and sentences of fathers, gave ample scope. From the
general analogy of the canon law to that of Justinian, the two
systems became in a remarkable manner collateral and mutually
intertwined, the tribunals governed by either of them borrowing
their rules of decision from the other in cases where their
peculiar jurisprudence is silent or of dubious interpretation. *
Pope Eugenius III was extremely satisfied with Gratian s
work, 2 and is said to have instituted the earliest academical
degrees for distinction in that branch of learning. St. Bernard s
feelings are clearly expressed in the De Consider atione.

It was a time, too, of political movement. Arnold of
Brescia, a disciple of Abelard, but more famous for his
political heresy, not only preached reform in the Church, but
threw Rome into convulsions by proclaiming (A.D. 1143) a
Republic. He presumed to quote the declaration of Christ,
that His kingdom is not of this world ; he boldly maintained
that the sword and the sceptre were intrusted to the civil
magistrate ; that temporal honours and possessions were law
fully vested in secular persons ; that the abbots, the bishops,
and the Pope himself must renounce either their state or their
salvation ; and that after the loss of their revenues, the
voluntary tithes and oblations of the faithful would suffice, not
indeed for luxury and avarice, but for a frugal life in the
exercise of spiritual labours. 3 The terror of successive popes,
he was hanged, burnt, and his ashes cast into the Tiber
(A.D. 1155) only two years after Bernard s death. The
saint s advice to the Pope more than once recalls the teaching,
tone, and temper of Arnold.

1 Hallam, Middle Ages, p. 369. 2 Mosheim, Cent. xii.

3 Gibbon, Decline and Fall, ch. Ixix,

Historical Introduction $

The Waldcnses and the allied Albigenses, claiming the
right to preach without commission, when, and where they
pleased, and infected with Manichean errors, were already
sowing the seeds of the Reformation, and the popes, by the
traffic in indulgences, were contributing to the resources of
the revolt.

But it is Abelard in whom centres so much of the intellectual
interest of the period, and for whom it is claimed that he
planted the standard of impartial philosophy . 1 He was almost
the first who awakened mankind in the ages of darkness to a
sympathy with intellectual excellence. His bold theories, not
the less attractive perhaps for treading upon the bounds of
heresy, his imprudent vanity, that scorned the regularly acquired
reputation of older men, allured a multitude of disciples who
would never have listened to an ordinary teacher. It is said that
twenty cardinals and fifty bishops had been among his hearers. 2
The schools of Paris through his stimulus acquired some
thing of the character of a University, and though his life
may have been the shipwreck of genius, there are few lives of
literary men more interesting, or more diversified by success
and adversity, by glory and humiliation, by the admiration of
mankind and the persecution of enemies . Such a man could
hardly escape the fiery wrath of St. Bernard, who described
him as with Arius disposing of the Trinity by degrees and
measures, with Pelagius preferring free will to grace, and with
Nestorius dividing Christ . 3 One of the most illustrious of

1 Lecky, Rationalism in Europe, i. p. 48. 2 Hallarn, Middle Ages.

8 For Abelard Lewes, Hi*t. of Philosophy, vol. ii. p. 13, sq., and
Uebcrweg, Hist, of Philosophy, vol. ii. p. 386-97 (translated by Professor
Morris, Hodder and Stoughton, 1872), may be consulted. Mr. Reginald
Poole, in his Illustrations r>f the //>/. of Medieval Thought in the
Departments of Theology and Politics, strongly sides with Abelard against
St. Bernard. On the other hand Cardinal Newman in his Rise and

6 Historical Introduction

Abelard s disciples was Peter Lombard (died 1164), whose
Book of Sentences, a collection of propositions from the fathers,
with no attempt at reconciling them, placed him at the head of
the scholastic divines. Scholastic theology and scholastic
philosophy were rapidly developing ; men were busy discussing
the provinces of faith and reason, or venturing to attempt the
solution, with the aid of Aristotle, of the insoluble in the
realms of metaphysics and Christian dogma.

Amid all this manifold stir and activity St. Bernard was the
most commanding personality. He could * create popes, and
command kings, and lead councils by the nose. His advice
was asked by the greatest persons in Church and State ; and
he was even adored by the common people, who fancied that
he was an inspired man, and endowed with the gifts of healing. *
So says a writer by no means disposed to exaggerate his
influence, or gild the merit of his private character. * We
must accept him as quite the eminent and governing man
in the Europe of his time whose word carried with it a
sovereign stress surpassing that of any other, whose hand most
effectively moulded history. 2

And there appears to be a general consensus that the treatise
on Consideration , brief though it be, is the greatest of St.
Bernard s literary efforts. Calvin declared that in it the author
spoke so sublimely as if he were the very truth speaking.
Neander regarded it as a mirror of humiliation to all subse
quent popes. Mr. Cotter Morison describes it as his great
work ; his American admirer, Dr. Storrs, more in detail, as
follows : The book has remained from that day to this the
mirror of St. Bernard s thoughts concerning a true pastor of

Progress of Universities (Historical Sketches, vol. iii.) has a pungent
criticism of the gifted Abelard .

1 Jortin, Part II. p. 294. 2 Storrs, p. 574.

Historical Introduction 7

Christendom. There is no single work of Bernard in which
his spirit is more clearly or more tranquilly revealed ; none
which is a better memorial of him. And it was written in
what he himself styled the season of his misfortunes when the
nations which had been recently thrilled with his eloquence,
astounded by his amazing works, and pushed by his energy to
magnificent enterprise, were stirred by griefs too deep for
tears, and hot with a rage that made the air like a fiery furnace.
I know of no one who could better have taken to himself the
ancient words of Ps. xxvii. 5 and Ivii. I : /// the day of trouble
he shall keep me secretly in his pavilion, in the covert of his
tabernacle shall he hide me. Be merciful unto me, God, be
merciful unto me ; for my soul taketh refuge in thee ; yea, in the
shadow of thy wings will I take refuge, until these calamities be
overpast? l

As I learn on inquiry at the Bodleian Library and at
the British Museum, no translation in English of St. Ber
nard s little masterpiece has hitherto been published. For
the suggestion that one might with advantage be offered
to the public I am indebted to my esteemed diocesan,
Dr. Gibson, Lord Bishop of Gloucester. Dr. Sanday s
unfailing kindness on this and other occasions I beg most
gratefully to acknowledge. I must also express my gratitude
to the Rev. P. H. Kempthorne (late Fellow of St. John s,
Cambridge), Rector of Wyck Risington, for favouring me
with his opinion on some obscure passages. The text
adopted is that of I. G. Krabinger, Custodian of the Royal
Library, Munich, 1844. Readers interested in the career
of St. Bernard may be referred to Cotter Morison s Life and
Times (Macmillan, 1901), the Rev. I. W. Sparrow s Lectures

1 Lecture* on St. Bernard at the Lowell Institute, Boston, and at the
Jo/ins Hopkins University, Baltimore, pp. 560-1.

8 Historical Introduction

(1895), and to the excellent little volume of the late
Dr. Eales (S.P.C.K.). Dr. Storrs book, quoted above, is on
a much larger scale. A valued correspondent tells me that
the Abbey of Clairvaux, once the home of 700 Religious,
is now a penal establishment, where more than 1,000 con
victs manufacture sheets, tissues, &c. How are the mighty
fallen !

GEORGE LEWIS.

ICOMB RECTORY,
February 8, 1908.

CONTENTS

HISTORICAL INTRODUCTION 3

CHRONOLOGY 10

ON CONSIDERATION:

PROLOGUE . . . . . . .11

BOOK I 13

BOOK II 36

BOOK III . 66

BOOK IV . 95

BOOK V . . . . . .124

CHRONOLOGY

A.D.

1091. Birth of St. Bernard.

1113. Bernard enters Citeaux.

1115. Foundation of Clairvaux.

1 130. Election of Pope Innocent II.

1 1 40. Council of Sens. First encounter with Abelard.

1145. Pope Eugenius III.

1147. Second Crusade.

1148. Council of Rheims. Errors of Gilbert of Poitiers

condemned.

1 1 49. Failure of the Crusade.

First Book of the De Consider atlone.

1150. Second Book.

1152. Third Book.

The two last some small time after (Du Pin).

1153. Death of St. Bernard.

PROLOGUE

1 AM thinking, Most Holy Father, Eugenius, of writing
something which may edify, delight, or console you. But
when I would fain begin I experience a strange hesitation,
and my words falter, for your Majesty and the love I have for
you, like rival commanders, issue conflicting orders. The one
bids me advance, the other holds me in check. Your con
descension reconciles their differences, inasmuch as though
you might more fitly enjoin a task, you beg of me a favour.
If then your Majesty unbends, my modesty should surely
also yield. True, you sit on Peter s seat. What of that ?
Though you walk on the wings of the wind, you will never
outstrip my affection. Love knows no lord ; it recognizes
a son even in the robes of office. Love, by its very nature,
is lowly enough ; it needs no prompting to kindness, seeks no
reward for obedience, sets no bounds to its respect. It is not
so with some, not so : but they are moved with fear or
avarice. These are they who seem to bless, but there is evil
in their hearts ; they flatter to one s face, but in the time of
need they desert us. But charity never faileth. 1 To confess
the truth, though I no longer act as a mother to you, I have
not lost a mother s affection for you. 2 In days gone by you
were rooted in my very heart ; you are not so easily to be
plucked out. Ascend into heaven, or descend into the abyss,
you shall not leave me : I will follow thee whithersoever thou
goest. I loved you when you were poor, I will love you now

1 i Cor. xiii. 8.

2 Eugenius, it will be remembered, had been under St. Bernard at
Clairvaux.

1 2 Prologue

o

that you are the father of both rich and poor. For if I know
you well, you have not in becoming the father of the poor lost
your poverty of spirit. I am sure that the change in your
circumstances has come to you : it has not been sought by
you ; and I am no less certain that your promotion has left
you what you were before, though something be added thereto.
I will, accordingly, admonish you, not as a schoolmaster, but
as a mother, at all events as one who loves you. Perhaps the
fonder I am, the more foolish I may seem. If so, it will be
in the eyes of him who loves not, and does not feel the power
of love.

BOOK I

[Sx. BERNARD shows how unhappy a Pope must be if he
neglects himself and spends all his time in hearing and decid
ing other men s differences. He complains of the great
number of causes brought into the ecclesiastical courts, and
of the many abuses prevailing there. The conduct of such
cases, he maintains, is more consistent with the secular than
the ecclesiastical power. He would not have Eugenius follow
the example of some of his predecessors, who were so im
mersed in business that they found no time for contemplation.
He would rather that the Pope imitated Gregory the Great
(b. about A. D. 550, d. A. D. 604), who, when Rome was
besieged, went on quietly working at his Homilies on the
Prophet Ezekicl. Things divine claim the first consideration.
The nature and connexion of the four primary virtues are
discussed, and the book concludes with a severe censure of
the unbecoming bickerings at the ecclesiastical bar, and an
earnest exhortation to Eugenius to endeavour to bring about
a reformation.]

CHAPTER I

S/. Reward sympathizes ivtt/j the "Pope in his
many cares

i . Well, then, where shall I begin ? I prefer to begin
with your occupations, because it is in these that I most
chiefly share your sorrow. Share, 1 say, for I take it for
granted that you have sorrow; otherwise I ought rather to
have said I sorrow , since where there is no sorrow one
cannot share it. Accordingly, if you grieve, I grieve with you;

14 On Consideration

if you do not, still I grieve, and deeply, because I know that
the member which is past feeling is all the farther from health,
and that the sick man who is unconscious of his sickness is in
the more dangerous condition. But God forbid that I should
have any such suspicion about you. I know how keenly,
not long ago, you used to enjoy the luxury of a quiet life.
You cannot so soon have changed your habits ; you cannot
all at once extinguish your regret for the pleasures so recently
taken from you. The fresh wound must be painful. The
wound has not already hardened, or in so short a time become
past feeling. However this may be, unless you dissemble,
your daily losses are sufficient reason for continual grief. If
I am not mistaken, you are reluctantly torn from the embraces
of your Rachel, 1 and as often as that befalls you your sorrow
must be renewed. But when does that not happen ? How
often do you wish, and in vain ? How often do you move,
but not move forward ? How often do you attempt, and
without result ? strive, and do not obtain ? How often are
you in labour, and do not bring forth ? venture out to sea,
but drift away ? where you begin, there make an end ? Just
as you are beginning to grow, do they not cut you down ? 2
The children have come to the birth/ saith the prophet,
and there is not strength to bring forth. 3 Do you know
this ? No one better. You are a man of shameless face,
and like the heifer, Ephraim, have learnt to love treading out
the corn, 4 if, with your consent, things go thus with you.

1 In the mystical writers Rachel and Leah respectively denote the con
templative and the active life.

* Or beginning to weave, cut your thread .

3 2 Kings xix. 3.

4 Hos. x. II. The treading out the corn was an easy and luxurious
service, since God had forbidden to muzzle the ox, while doing it. It
pictures then the sweet gentle ways by which God wins us to His service.

Boot /, Chapter i 17

God forbid ! This is the portion of him who is given over
to a reprobate sense. I certainly long for you to have peace
away from these, not in their company. There is nothing
I dread more for you than that peace. Do you wonder if
such peace could ever be yours ? Yes, I tell you, if, as mostly
happens, habit passes into heedlessness.

CHAPTER II
The strength of evil custom

2. Do not trust your present feelings too much. There is
nothing so rooted in the heart but it may by neglect in process
of time lose its force and vigour. If you neglect the old
wound it grows callous, and in proportion as it loses feeling it
becomes incurable. In fact, severe unceasing pain cannot last
long ; if it is not got rid of some other way, it must of neces
sity be conquered by itself. Beyond a doubt it will either be
relieved by some remedy, or it will end in stupefaction.
Custom turns everything upside down. Give it time, and
what can resist its hardening effect ? What does not yield
to use ? How many find that the bitterness they had formerly
dreaded has unfortunately through use alone turned to sweet
ness ? Hear how the just man laments over this : What
things my soul refused to touch are now through want
become my food. * At first something will seem to you

Israel would serve thus far ; for she liked the service ; she was accustomed
to it, and loved it. Pusey, Minor Prophet*.

1 Job. vi. 7. The proper idea not having been seized, the passage has
been given very differently by prior expositors; almost all of whom are,
at the same time, at variance with each other. In our established text it

1 6 On Consideration

unbearable ; as time goes on, and you get used to it, you will
judge it of no such great importance ; a little later you will
think it even unimportant ; a little later you will not think it
even that ; a little later it will delight you. Thus little by
little our hearts are hardened, and then we loathe goodness.
Just so, severe unceasing pain must, as I have said, have
a speedy ending ; it will either be cured, or insensibility will
ensue.

3. This is precisely why I have always feared, and still fear,
that if you delay to apply the remedy, you will not endure the
pain, and that you may thus incur the risk of being irrevocably
and hopelessly overwhelmed. I am afraid, I say, lest, sur
rounded by occupations so numerous that you distrust your
power of getting through them, you may harden your forehead,
and thus gradually in a measure strip yourself of the feeling of
a just and profitable sorrow. It would be far more prudent
for you to even leave them for a time, than suffer yourself to
be carried away by them, and certainly by degrees led whither
you would not. Do you ask whither ? I reply, to a hard
heart. Do not further ask what that means ; if you have not
greatly feared it, it is yours already. That heart alone is hard
which does not shudder at itself for not feeling its hardness.
Why ask me ? Ask Pharaoh. No one ever got his hard
heart cured unless God haply took pity on him, and, accord
ing to the prophet, removed his heart of stone and gave him

occurs thus: "Can that which is unsavoury be eaten without salt? or is
there any taste in the white of an egg ? The things that my soul refused
to touch are as my sorrowful meat " : a mixt rendering from the different
Latin copies ; and at the same time offering no meaning whatever.
Good s Translation of the Book of Job, Notes, p. 70. Good renders
A thing loathful to the taste of my soul, this alas ! is my sorrowful meat.
The R. V., Margin, has, What things my soul refused to touch these are
as my loathsome meat,

Book /, Chapter it 17

a heart of llesh. 1 What then is a hard heart ? It is a heart
which is not torn by remorse, nor softened by affection, nor
moved by entreaties ; which does not yield to threats, but is
hardened by scourges. It is ungrateful for kindnesses, faith
less in counsel, cruel in judgement, shameless in disgrace,
without sense of fear in the midst of danger, inhuman in things
human, heedless in things divine ; it forgets the past, neglects
the present, does not look on to the future. It is a heart
emptied of all the past except the wrongs it has suffered,
which lets slip all the present, which has no forecast of the
future, no preparation to meet it, unless perchance it be with
a view to gratifying its malice. And, that I may briefly sum
up the mischief of this dreadful plague, it is a heart which
neither fears God nor respects man. See whither these
accursed occupations can drag you at their heels, if, as you
have begun, you continue to give yourself wholly to them,
and leave nothing of yourself for yourself. You are wasting
time ; and, if I may present myself to you in the character of
another Jethro, you, 2 like Moses, are spending yourself in this
foolish labour over these things which are nothing else but
torture of spirit, the enfeebling of the mind, the voiding of
grace. For the fruit of these things, what is it but spiders
webs ?

CHAPTER III

The rulers of the Church, ought not to he for ever
hearing and deciding lawsuits

4. Tell me, pray, what is the good of litigating from morn
ing till evening, or of listening to litigants ? And would that
sufficient unto the day were the evil thereof! The nights are
1 Ezek. xxxvi. 26. a Exod. xviii. 18.

SI. LLKNAKL)

i 8 On Consideration

not free. There is hardly enough time left to give the poor
body a little rest and satisfy the needs of nature ; once again
up ! and to the strife. Day vomits forth lawsuits unto day, and
night declares evil unto night, until it is not possible to take
breath in goodness, nor snatch a little rest by way of change,
nor find even a few scattered intervals of leisure. I have no
doubt that you as well as I deplore these things ; but what is
the good of that if you do not strive to amend them ? Still, until
you do amend them, I exhort you to go on ever deploring
them, and not allow yourself to grow hardened in them
through any familiarity with them or unremitting application
to them. I have smitten them, saith God, and they have
not grieved. l Have nothing in common with such persons.
Rather make it your care to appropriate both the feeling and
the words of the righteous man who says, What is my
strength that I should endure ? or what is mine end, that I
should be patient ? My strength is not the strength of stones,
nor is my flesh of brass. 2 Great is the virtue of patience ;
but I could not wish for you patience in these things. It is
sometimes more laudable to be impatient. You surely do not
approve of the patience of those people to whom Paul was
wont to say, Ye suffer fools gladly, seeing ye yourselves are
wise. 3 Unless I am deceived, the Apostle spoke ironically,
not by way of praise ; he is flouting the tameness of certain
individuals, who, as it were, put out their hands to the false
apostles by whom they had been seduced, and allowed them
selves most patiently to be carried away by their teachers into
all sorts of strange and corrupt doctrines. And so he adds,
* For ye endure if a man bring you into bondage. 4 Patience
is not good, if, when you may be free, you allow yourself to

1 J er - v - 3- 2 Job vi. II. 3 2 Cor. xi. 19.

4 Ibid. 20.

I

Book /, Chapter Hi 19

become a slave. I would not have you disguise the slavery
into which, though you know it not, you are daily brought.
It is a sign of a heart waxed gross, that it does not feel its
own continual vexation. Vexation causes a report to be under
stood/ saith one. 1 True ; but only if it be not excessive. For
if it be, it clearly does not cause the mischief to be understood,
but to be despised. In fact, when the wicked man reaches
the depths of wickedness, he despiseth it. 2 Rouse yourself,
therefore, and not only guard against, but dread, the yoke of
the worst of all slaveries at this very moment threatening you,
nay rather already pressing with no light weight upon you. Are
you therefore not a slave because you are the slave not of one
but of all ? There is no more disgraceful slavery, none worse,
than that of the Jews ; whithersoever they go they drag the
chain, and everywhere displease their masters. Tell me, pray,
when you are ever free, ever safe, ever your own. Every
where is bustle, noise, and confusion ; everywhere the yoke of
your slavery galls you.

CHAPTER IV

What service is worthy , what unworthy ^ of the
servants of God

5. And you must not confront me with the Apostle s
saying, * Though I were free from all 1 made myself the bond
servant of all. 8 That is far from being your case. Did he

1 Isa. xxviii. 19. Vtxatio ilat intellectum amlitui. K.V. has, It shall
be nought but terror to understand the message (or report). Chcyne
translates the Hebrew, < It shall be simply a terror to understand the
tidings. AuditHs has the meaning re fort in St. John xii. 38.

a Prov. xviii. 3. 3 I Cor. ix. ly.

K 2

20 On Consideration

by this service make himself the slave of men in their acquisi
tion of filthy lucre ? Did men full of ambition, avaricious,
simoniacal, sacrilegious, keepers of concubines, incestuous, all
sorts of human monsters such as these, come streaming to
him from all over the world, so that by means of his apostolic
authority they might obtain, or retain, ecclesiastical distinctions ?
The reason why the man to whom to live was Christ, and to
die was gain the reason why he made himself a bondservant
was that he might gain the more for Christ, not that he might
increase the gains of avarice. You must not, therefore, make
Paul s great shrewdness, zeal, and love so free, a plea for the
life of a slave which you lead. How much more worthy
of your apostleship, how much more wholesome for your
conscience, how much more fruitful for the Church of God, if
you would rather attend to his words elsewhere, Ye are
bought with a price, refuse to be made the servants of men/ 1
What is more servile and unworthy, specially of the chief
pontiff, than, I do not say every day, but almost every hour, to
toil at such things, and for such people ? When, then, are
we to pray ? when to teach our people ? when to build up the
Church ? when to meditate in the law ? 1 know, of course,
that the palace every day re-echoes with the sound of the laws,
but they are the laws of Justinian, 2 not those of the Lord. Is
that as it ought to be ? See for yourself. Surely, the law of
the Lord is undefiled, converting souls. 3 But these are not
so much laws as lawsuits and sophistical arguments subverting
judgement. How is it then, pray tell me, that you the
shepherd and bishop of souls can endure to have the law of
the Lord stand dumb before you, while these laws never cease
to chatter ? I am mistaken if this perversity does not cause
you some anxiety. I suppose that sometimes it even makes you

1 i Cor. vi. 20. 2 See above, Hist. Introd. 3 Ps. xix. 7.

Book I, Chapter iv 21

cry to the Lord with the prophet, The wicked have told
me tales, but not according to Thy law. l Go then, and dare
to profess yourself a free man while you have this heavy load
of inconsistency upon your shoulders, from which you cannot
escape. For if you have the power and not the will, so much
the more are you the slave of this very perverse will of yours.
Is he not a slave who is ruled by iniquity ? He is the worst
of all slaves. Unless, perchance, in your judgement there is
less dishonour in being governed by a vice than by a man.
What difference docs it make whether you serve willingly or
against your will ? For though compulsory slavery be more
pitiable, slavery deliberately sought is more lamentable. And
what, say you, do you wish me to do ? I would
have you give yourself some respite from these occupations.
Impossible, you will perhaps reply; I could more easily
bid farewell to the chair. A good reply if I were urging you
to break them off altogether, and not rather to have some
break in them.

CHAPTER V

The Pope should not be so absorbed in other men s
affairs as to neglect himself

6. Let me then put before you my rejoinder, and offer you
my advice. If you give all your life and all your wisdom to
action, and nothing to consideration, do I praise you ? in this
I praise you not. I suppose no one would who has heard
Solomon s words, He that hath little business shall become
\viM . - Action itself certainly does not fare well unless

1 I -, cxix. 85. - Kc< In*, xxxviii. 25.

22

On Consideration

preceded by consideration. If you wish to belong altogether
to other people, like him who was made all things to all men, 1
I praise your humanity, but only on condition that it be
complete. But how can it be complete if you yourself are left
out ? You, too, are a man. So then, in order that your
humanity may be entire and complete, let your bosom, which
receives all, find room for yourself also. Otherwise, according
to the word of the Lord, what does it profit you if you gain
the whole world and lose your own self? a Wherefore, though
all possess you, take care that you are one among them. Why
are you alone defrauded of your reward ? How long will you
be a wind that passeth away and cometh not again ? 3 Will
the time never come when you will in turn receive yourself
among the rest ? You are a debtor both to the wise and to
the foolish ; and are you the only one to whom you deny
yourself? Wise and foolish, bond and free, rich and poor,
male and female, old and young, cleric and layman, righteous
and wicked, all alike share in you, all drink at the public
fountain of your heart ; and will you stand apart and thirst ?
If he is cursed who impairs his inheritance, what are we to say
of him who strips himself of it altogether ? By all means let
your waters stream down into the streets ; let men and flocks
and herds drink thereof, nay let the servants of Abraham give
drink even to the camels ; but among the rest do you yourself
drink of the water of your own well. Let not a stranger ,
saith the Scripture, drink thereat. 4 Are you a stranger ? To
whom are you not a stranger, if you are one to yourself ? In
short, if a man is bad to himself, to whom is he good ? 5
So remember, I do not say always, I do not say often, but at
least sometimes, to restore yourself to yourself. Among the

1 i Cor. ix. 22. 2 St. Matt. xvi. 26. 3 Ps. Ixxviii. 39.

4 Prov. v. 17. Ecclus. xiv. 5.

Booh /, Chapter v 23

many, or at all events after the many, do you also make use of
yourself. Can I make a more liberal concession to you ? For
what I say, I say to spare you, not according to my strict
judgement. I suppose that in this respect I am more indulgent
even than the Apostle himself. More, then/ you reply, than
I ought to be. I do not deny it. But suppose the
Apostle s standard be the right one, it matters not, for I am
confident you will not be satisfied with my timid outline l of
your duty, but will more abound. It is certainly more fitting
that you should abound than that I should be too bold. I
also think it safer for myself in dealing with your Majesty to
err on the side of timidity than of rashness. And perhaps this
is the way a wise man should be admonished if the Scripture
is to be fulfilled Give a wise man an opportunity and he
will be still wiser . 2

CHAPTER VI

The administration of justice concerns temporal
governors rather than bishops

7. Still I would have you hear what the Apostle thinks
about this. Is it so that there is not a wise man among
you, he says, who may judge between brother and brother ? s
And he adds, * I say this to move you to shame ; those who
are of less account in the church, set them to judge. 4 So,
according to the Apostle, apostolic man though you are, you
usurp a mean office unworthy of you, and descend to the level
of those who are of less account. Hence it is that as bishop,

1 Or, Instruction. Infnrmator was in mediaeval Latin a school
master.

- I rov. ix. 9. 3 I Cor. vi. 5. Ibid. v. 4.

24 On Consideration

instructing a bishop, the Apostle said, No soldier of God
entangleth himself in the affairs of this life. l But I spare
you. For my aim is not to speak strongly, but to point out
what is possible. Do you think the times would endure it, if,
when men are wrangling over an earthly inheritance, and are
clamouring for your judgement, you were to answer them in
the words of your Lord, Men, who made Me a judge over
you ? 2 What sort of a judgement would be pronounced
on you ? Something like this What says this ignorant
boor, disregarding his primacy, dishonouring the sovereign
see, disparaging the apostolic dignity ? And yet, I suppose,
the critics could not point to a single instance of an apostle
sitting as a judge of men, a fixer of land-marks, or a dis
tributor of lands. In fact I read that the apostles stood to be
judged, not that they sat to judge. 3 The time for judging
will come ; it is not yet. Does the servant really degrade
himself if he does not wish to be greater than his lord, or
the disciple if he does not wish to be greater than he who sent
him, or a son if he does not overpass the bounds which
his fathers set ? Who made Me a judge ? 4 said our great
Lord and Master. And shall any wrong be done to the
servant and disciple if he does not judge all mankind ? In my
opinion the man who thinks it unworthy of apostles or apostolic
men, to whom judgement over greater matters has been com
mitted, to refrain from judging in these smaller ones, does not
understand the relative value of things. Why should they
not scorn to give judgement concerning men s poor earthly
possessions, seeing that they shall judge heavenly things, and
angels too ? Your jurisdiction, therefore, is over criminal
cases, not over property ; if indeed it is for the former pur-

1 2 Tira. ii. 4. 2 St. Luke xii. 14. 3 Acts v. 27.

4 St. Luke xii. 14.

Book /, Chapter vi 25

pose, not for the latter, that you have received the keys of the
kingdom of heaven, which will, I presume, shut out men
because they are transgressors, not because they are owners of
property. That ye may know, our Lord says, that the
Son of Man hath power on earth to forgive sins. 1 Which
seems to you the greater dignity and power, that of forgiving
sins, or that of dividing estates ? The truth is that there is
no comparison between them. These lower earthly things
have their own judges, the kings and princes of the earth.
Why trespass on another man s province ? Why put your
sickle into another man s harvest ? Not that men in your
position are unworthy, but because to devote yourselves to
such matters when you have enough to do with better is
unworthy of you. Finally, where necessity requires, this is
what the Apostle thinks If the world shall be judged by
you, are ye unworthy to judge the smallest matters ? 2

CHAPTER VII

Nothing more deserving of consideration than
piety and things eternal

8. But it is one thing now and then for some urgent reason
to turn aside to these matters ; it is another of your own
accord to apply yourself to them as if they were of such
importance as to deserve the earnest attention of your exalted
rank. Accordingly, if I wished to speak strongly, or with
perfect sincerity say all that is right, I should say all that
I have said and a vast deal besides. But as things are, for
the days are evil," it is enough now that you have been

1 St. Matt. ix. 6. 2 i Cor. vi. 2. 3 Epli. v. i<V

26 On Con side ratio?]

admonished not to give yourself up altogether, nor at all times, to
the active life, but to set apart some portion of your heart and
of your time for consideration. But in saying this I have regard
to the necessity laid upon you, not to the claims of righteous
ness : albeit there is no unrighteousness in yielding to neces
sity. For if the fitting were possible, reason unanswerably
shows that piety, which is profitable for all things, should
under all conceivable circumstances be distinctly preferred,
and that it ought, either alone or above all else, to be stu
diously cultivated. Do you ask what piety is ? It is leaving
time for consideration. You may perhaps tell me that herein
I differ from him who defines piety as the worship of God V
I do not really differ from him. If you well consider the point
you will find that I have expressed his meaning in my own
words, only partly, however, I admit. What is so essential to
the worship of God as the practice to which He exhorts in
the psalm, Be still and see that I am God ? 2 This certainly
is the chief object of consideration. Is anything, in all
respects, so influential as consideration? Does it not by
a kindly anticipation create the divisions of the active life
itself, in a manner rehearsing and arranging beforehand what
has to be done ? There must be consideration lest haply
affairs which foreseen and premeditated might turn out well,
may, if precipitated, be fraught with peril. I have no doubt,
if you will recall the incidents, you will find that in law cases,
important business of various kinds, or in weighty delibera
tions, you have yourself frequently had this sorrowful experi
ence. First of all, consideration purifies the very fountain,
that is the mind, from which it springs. Then it governs the
affections, directs our actions, corrects excesses, softens the
manners, adorns and regulates the life, and, lastly, bestows
j 1 Job xxviii. 28. 2 Ps. xlvi. IO.

Booh I, Chapter vii 27

the knowledge of things divine and human alike. It is con
sideration that brings order out of disorder, puts in the links,
pulls things together, investigates mysteries, traces the truth,
weighs probabilities, exposes shams and counterfeits. It is
consideration which arranges beforehand what is to be done,
and ponders what is accomplished, so that nothing faulty, or
needing correction, may settle in the mind. It is considera
tion which in prosperity feels the sting of adversity, in
adversity is as though it felt not ; the one is fortitude, the
other is prudence.

CHAPTER VIII
The four primary virtues

9. And herein you may observe a delightfully harmonious
connexion between the virtues, and their dependence one upon
another. In the present instance, for example, Prudence is
the mother of Fortitude, nor ought any deed of daring to be
called fortitude, but rather rashness, if it be not the child of
prudence. It is consideration, too, which sits as it were
umpire of the strife between our pleasures and our necessities,
settles the boundaries on either side, allotting and allowing to
the latter what is sufficient, taking from the former what is
excessive, and then from both fashioning a third virtue known
as Temperance. For consideration deems the man who denies
himself what is necessary no less intemperate than the man
who indulges to excess. Temperance, therefore, consists not
only in cutting down superfluities, but in allowing necessaries.
The Apostle apj>ears to be not merely the supporter of this
\iew, but its author, for he teaches us that the care of our

28 On Consideration

flesh is not perfected in the gratification of its desires. 1 When
he says that the care of the flesh is not perfected , he checks
all excess ; when he adds * in the gratification of its desires , he
does not exclude what is necessary. I therefore think there
is good sense in the definition of Temperance given by the
writer who^tells us that it neither cuts off what jsjaeccssary,
nor goes beyond it. This agrees with the philosopher s
maxim, ; Moderation in all things.

I o. Now as regards Justice, which is one of the four, is it
not certain that there must be previous consideration in order
that Justice may be a mental habit ? The mind must first
reflect upon itself in order that it may frame a rule of Justice,
and not be inclined to do to another what it would not have
done to itself, nor refuse to another what it desires for itself.
These two assuredly comprise the whole sphere of Justice.
But Justice does not abide alone. Permit me to point out to
you the beautifully close and harmonious connexion which
exists between it and Temperance, and between both these
and the two former virtues. Prudence and Fortitude. For if
it be a part of Justice to refrain from doing to another man
what we would not have done to ourselves, and if perfect
Justice, 2 as our Lord says, consists in doing to other men
whatsoever we would they should do to us, neither of these
will be possible unless the will itself, which entirely deter
mines the nature of an action, be so ordered that it neither
desires anything superfluous, nor superstitiously refuses any
thing necessary ; and this is the work of Temperance. In
a word, if Justice itself is to be just, it must be regulated by
Temperance. Be not righteous over much saith the wise
man, 8 showing us hereby that Justice without the curb and

1 Rom. xiii. 14, apparently. 2 St. Matt. vii. 12.

3 Eccles. vii. 16.

Book /, Chapter viii 29

restraint of Temperance is by no means to be approved. It is
noteworthy that Wisdom itself does not refuse the bridle of
Temperance, for Paul, according to the wisdom given to him by
God, bids us not to be wiser than we ought, but to be soberly
wise. 1 But, on the other hand, that Temperance cannot
dispense with Justice, our Lord shows us in the Gospel,
when He rebukes the temperance of those who abstained that
they might seem to men to fast. 2 There was temperance in
respect of food, but there was not justice in the heart, because
their aim was not to please God but to please men. Again,
how can you have either one or the other unless you have
Fortitude, since Fortitude, and no slight Fortitude, is required,
if what you desire, and what you decline, are to be confined to
the narrow channel which lies between too little on the one
side, and too much on the other, so that the will may be con
tent with that bare, unmixed, unalloyed, consistent, nicely
balanced, as it were neatly trimmed, moderation, which alone,
we are agreed, partakes of the quality of virtue.

ii. Tell me, pray, if you can, to which particularly of
these three virtues you think this middle place should be given,
which so borders upon all that it seems to belong to each.
Arc virtue and the mean identical ? If so, virtue would not
be manifold, but all the virtues would be included in one. Is
it not better to maintain that unless the mean be kept there
can be no virtue ? and that this middle region of which we
speak is in a sense the very pith and marrow of all virtues,
wherein they are so united that they must all seem to be one,
all the more because by sharing in it they do not divide it, but it
is as an unbroken whole the property of each ? For example,
what is so characteristic of Justice as Moderation ? This is
so certain, that if Justice be tainted with excess, it clearly
1 Rom. xii. 3. a St. Matt. vi. 16.

30 On Consideration

does not give to every man his due ; yet this giving to every
man his due is the very object of Justice. Again, what is
more characteristic of Temperance, which is surely what it is
for no other reason than that it allows nothing immoderate ?
But you will, I suppose, admit that the observance of the
mean is no less a mark of Fortitude. Is not Fortitude above
all things necessary to put forth its power and rescue Modera
tion from the assaults of vices which on every side try to
strangle it? And once it is free, is it not Fortitude that
makes it a solid foundation of goodness, and the abode of
virtue ? Therefore, to keep the mean is Justice, Temperance,
Fortitude. Perhaps the difference between them may be thus
stated Justice is concerned with the affections ; Fortitude
makes Justice efficacious; possession as well as use are the
domain of Temperance. It remains for us to show that
Prudence is not excluded from this communion of the virtues.
Is it not Prudence which first discovers and gives attention to
Moderation when it has been too long neglected and despised,
imprisoned as it were through the jealousy of the vices, and
hidden out of sight in the darkness of inveterate habit ? Why
do I tell you this ? Few pay attention to Prudence because
few possess it. So Justice seeks, Prudence finds, Fortitude
frees, Temperance possesses. I do not propose to now dis
cuss these virtues, but this much I would say because I am
urging you to find some time for consideration, through whose
kindly service these and such like truths receive the attention
they deserve. To bestow no labour in life on securing
leisure so pious and so profitable, is not this to lose life
itself?

Rook /, Chapter ix 31

CHAPTER IX

The recent practice of the Tope to be gradually
corrected, the old imitated

12. But suppose you were unexpectedly to devote yourself
entirely to this philosophy. Your predecessors were not
wont so to do ; you will be a nuisance to all the world, inas
much as you are not walking in the footsteps of your fathers ;
and, what is more, it will seem as though your conduct were
designed to flout them. Besides this, you will be a target for
the familiar proverb the man who does what nobody else
does is a marvel to everybody ; it will be hinted that you
have a passion for admiration. And you cannot all at once,
or altogether, either correct the faults of your critics or mod
erate their excesses. After a time you will be able, according
to the wisdom given to you by God, little by little and as oc
casion offers, to take the business in hand. Meanwhile, by
all means turn another man s badness to good account ; this
you can do. Still, if we are to follow that which is good,
not that which is new, there have not been wanting Roman
pontiffs who found leisure in the midst of the weightiest
affairs. When the city was besieged, and the sword of the
barbarians was over the necks of the citizens, was Pope
Gregory thereby deterred from writing words of wisdom at
his leisure ? At that very time, forsooth, as appears from his
preface, he expounded with no less diligence than elegance
the concluding and most obscure portion of EzekieJ.

32 On Consideration

CHAPTER X

The shameless trickery of advocates, judges^
and procurators

13. Very good , you say, but different customs now
prevail, we live in other days, and men s manners have
changed ; dangerous times are not only coming but have come.
Deceit, and guile, and violence have grown strong upon the
earth. Pettifoggers abound, a defender a of the right is rare,
everywhere the strong oppress the poor ; we dare not fail to
succour the oppressed, we cannot refuse justice to the sufferers.
Unless causes are pleaded, and both sides heard, how can
judgement be given between the parties. My reply is this
Let the causes be pleaded, but in the proper way. For the pre
valent practice is most execrable, and such as does not become
even the forum, let alone the Church. It is a marvel to me
how your religious ears can bear to listen to the disputes
of advocates 2 of this class, and to their battles of words,

1 Honorius, Emperor of the West, at the request of African Councils,
appointed in A.D. 407 lay defenders (defensores} of the Church, to
watch over its privileges and maintain its rights, so that the clergy should
not be obliged to appear personally in secular courts. (Robertson, Ch.
Hist, vol. i. p. 573.) In Rome, beginning with Innocent I (A.D. 402-
417) the Defenders became by the time of Gregory the Great a regular
order of officers whose duties were (i) to defend Church interests generally,
(ii) to take care of alms left for the poor, (iii) to go to help applicants
from a distance for Papal protection, (iv) to look after outlying estates
belonging to St. Peter s patrimony. At that time there were seven such
officers, each with his own region. They were usually laymen, but some
times clerics, and held a sort of ecclesiastical position. (Diet, of Christian
Antiq. vol. i. p. 33.)

2 Advocates, Defenders, or Vicedomini (French Vidames) arose in
Gaul during the sixth and seventh centuries. Except in name they bore

Book /, Chapter .v 3 3

which avail more to the subversion of the truth than to its
discovery. Correct the corrupt custom, cut off the tongues
that speak vanity, close the deceitful lips. These are they
who have taught their tongue to utter lies ; they are clever in
withstanding justice, learned in defending falsehood. They
are wise to do evil, eloquent to assail the truth. These are
they who venture to instruct their teachers, who invent their
facts, blackmail the innocent, destroy the simplicity of truth,
obstruct the ways of judgement. Nothing so easily brings
virtue to light as a brief and simple narrative. So then, when
cases must come before you they need not by any means all
come I should like you to decide them with care, but sum
marily, and so cut short these dilatory adjournments which
mean nothing but the hunting of the prey. Let the cause of
the widow come unto you, the cause of the poor, and of him
who hath nothing to give. You will be able to hand over
many other causes to various persons to dispose of; the vast
majority you will not deem even worthy of a hearing. For
what need is there to admit to your presence men whose sins

no resemblance to the defenders of the earlier ages. They defended
the bishops and clergy against their rude and lawless neighbours, acted as
secular judge, led the contingents to the army furnished by church
estates, &c. Charlemagne made the appointment of such a champion for
every church compulsory. Tire champion was usually a powerful layman,
and his reward was the use of land belonging to the church and adjacent to
his own. The advocates gradually became tyrants instead of protectors,
neglected their duty, usurped the right of nominating to the church or
abbey, made the office hereditary, and treated the property of the Church
as if it were their own. The monasteries were especially oppressed by
their defenders , who often paid largely to the sovereign for the privilege
of defending them. Councils in Kngland restricted these usurpations as
early as the Council of Beccanceld (A. 0.696) and Clovesho, most prob
ably Clifl-at-Hoe near Rochester (A.D. 803). In St. Bernard s time
(A.D. 1148) the Council of Rhcims dealt with the subject in its <ixth
Canon. Robertson, Ch. ////. , Diet, of Christ. Antiq., &c.

IT. II kNAkl)

34 On Consideration

clearly go before to judgement ? So gigantic is the impudence
of some men, that though their causes bear on their very face
the swarming scabs of ambition, they do not blush to demand
a hearing, thus revealing themselves to the consciences of the
multitude, a tribunal before which they would, as in the judge
ment of even their own conscience, be confounded. There was
no one to check their effrontery ; so the numbers grew, and they
lost all sense of shame. But, oddly enough, a vicious man
does not shun the consciences of other vicious men, and
where all are filthy, the stench of one is hardly noticed. For
instance, when did an avaricious man ever blush for another
avaricious man, the unclean for the unclean, the luxurious for
the luxurious ? The Church is full of ambitious men ; the time
has gone by for being shocked at the enterprising efforts of
ambition ; we think no more of it than a robber s cave thinks
of the spoils of the wayfarers.

CHAPTER XI
Such iniquitous greed to be sternly rebuked

14. If you are a disciple of Christ, let your zeal kindle, let
your authority arise against this impudence and widespread
pestilence. Look to your Master, see what He does, listen
as He says Let my servant follow me. 1 He does not
prepare ears to hear, but a scourge wherewith to smite. He
neither utters words nor attends to them. For he is not
sitting to judge, but pursuing to punish. Nevertheless, he
plainly indicts the offenders they had made the house of
prayer a place of merchandise. Do you follow His example.

1 St. John xii. 26.

Book I, Chapter xt 35-

Let traffickers of this description blush before your counten
ance, if possible; if that may not be, let them be afraid.
(You have the scourge in your hand. Let the money-changers
fear ; let them not trust in their money, but distrust its power ;
let them hide their money from you because they know you
are more ready to pour it out than to accept it. By earnestly
and constantly acting thus you will gain many, because you
will win over to more honourable pursuits those who follow
after filthy lucre, and you will preserve many from even daring
to attempt anything of the kind. And there is something
else. There will be a substantial increase in the leisure time
which I am urging you to secure, for you will thus redeem
not a few brief intervals to devote to leisurely consideration,
sometimes by not hearing the business at all, on other occasions
by entrusting it to some one else. When you deem the
matter worthy to be heard by yourself, by judging the case on
its merits you will save both time and expense. I am thinking
of adding a few remarks on this topic, but I prefer to do so
at the beginning of another book. Here let me end. I am
afraid you may not only find my matter unpleasant, but think
me tedious.

C 2

BOOK II

[Eugenius had delegated to St. Bernard the office of preach
ing the Second Crusade (A. D. 1147), which ended in utter
and hopeless failure . * Soon , says Mr. Cotter Morison
(Life and Times of St. Bernard, p. 417), from the broad
population of Europe, a murmur of wrath and reproach was
heard, which, rising in every swelling volume, at last broke
into articulate utterance, and thundered out the name "Bernard"
with every mark of anger and resentment. . . . Bernard was
accused and reviled as the author of the calamities which had
overtaken the Crusade. Why did he preach it ? Why did
he prophesy success ? Why did he work miracles to make
men join it, if this was to be the result ? In the opening
portion of this book the Saint answers these questions and
attempts to justify himself.

He next points out the four subjects worthy of considera
tion yourself* things beneath you, things around you, things
above you, and admonishes Eugenius to consider who he is,
and, as to the dignity of his profession, -what he is. First, he
is to reflect whence he is descended, which may serve to abate
his pride. His authority over all churches is for service, not
for arbitrary dominion. If he grasps at civil and ecclesiastical
supremacy, he deserves to lose both. Secondly. Eugenius is
not only supreme pastor over all the flocks, but likewise over
all the shepherds . Nevertheless, he must remember that the
dignity which has been superadded to him has not been able
to divest him of his nature. Born a man, he is still a man,
and ought to consider himself as a man. Draw the veil
which covers you, disperse the clouds that environ you, and
you will find yourself a poor, naked, wretched creature in
a word, born in sin, with a short life abounding in miseries,
and full of fears and complaints. Thirdly, Eugenius is to
consider his manners and conduct, and, in conclusion, is
exhorted to the pursuit of various virtues. Du Pin, &c.]

Book II, Chapter i 37

CHAPTER I

St. Bernard a/>o/og/zes for the failure of the
Second Crusade

I. I remember, dear Eugenius, Father in God and best of
men. the promise which I made, alas ! too long ago. Now,
late though it be. I propose to redeem my pledge. I should
be ashamed of the delay if I were conscious of carelessness 01
contempt. This is not the case ; but, as you yourself know,
we have fallen on evil times ; it seemed as though our social
life, not to speak of our studies, was doomed to come to
a standstill ; it was as though the Lord, provoked by our sins,
were almost judging the world before the time, with equity
indeed, but forgetful of his mercy. He has not spared the
people, nor His own Name. Do they not say among the
peoples, Where is their God ? ! And no wonder. The
sons of the Church, and they who bear the Christian name,
lie prostrate in the desert, slain with the sword, or perished
with hunger. Floods of strife have overwhelmed our rulers,
and the Lord has made them to wander in the waste, where
there is no way. 2 Tribulation and misfortune are in their
ways, terror, sorrow, and confusion in the chambers of kings
themselves. 3 Confusion dogs the footsteps of those that
bring tidings of peace, that announce good things ! 4 We
said peace , and there is no peace ; we promised good
things, and lo ! perplexity. It might be supposed we had

1 Ps. xlii. IO. Ps. cvii. 40.

8 Ps. xiii. 3, Vulg. Isa. lix. 7. See also Sanday and Hcadlani, Rom.
iii. 15-17.
< Isa. Iii. 7.

38 On Consideration

therein been light or rash. We certainly ran therein not
as uncertainly, but at your command, nay, rather at God s
command given through you. Why then have we fasted, and
He hath not beheld ? humbled our souls, and He knew not ?
For in all these things His fury is not turned from us, but
His hand is stretched out stilJ. How patiently, meanwhile,
doth He listen to the impious words of the blasphemous
Egyptians, He craftily led them out that He might slay
them in the desert. J We all know that the judgements of
the Lord are true. 2 But this judgement is such a great deep
that I could almost justify myself for calling him blessed who
is not offended thereat.

2. Still, how strange it is that men are so rash as to dare
to reprehend what they cannot possibly comprehend ! Let
us call to mind the judgements of former times, which have
been since the world began, if haply we may find consolation
in them. For one spoke on this wise, I have remembered
thy judgements of old, O Lord, and have comforted myself. "
I speak of what everybody knew, and now nobody knows.
Forsooth this is the way with the wit of man. Knowledge
is sometimes superfluous : when we need it, we have it not.
Moses, when about to lead the people out of the land of
Egypt, promised them a better land. Otherwise, had they
known that land only, were they ever likely to follow him ?
He led them out, but when they were led out he did not lead
them into the land which he had promised. 4 Nor can the sad
and unlooked-for issue be attributed to the rashness of the
leader. He did everything as the Lord commanded, the
Lord working with him, and confirming his work by signs
following. But that people, you say, was stiff-necked, always

1 Ex. xxxii. 12. 2 Ps. xix. 9. 3 Ps. cxix. 52.

4 Deut. xxxii. 52, &c.

Book 77, Chapter i 39

stubbornly opposing the Lord and his servant Moses. Well !
they were faithless and rebellious ; but what are these ? Ask
them. What need for me to say what they themselves con
fess ? One thing I do say. How could they reach their
journey s end who were always turning back on the road ?
Was there ever a time in their whole journey when they were
not in their heart turning back into Egypt ? But if they fell
and perished on account of their iniquity, can we wonder that
our contemporaries with the same conduct have the same j
experience ? But was their fall contrary to the promises of
God : No, nor has the fall of these latter been. For the
promises of God never prejudice the righteousness of God.
And something else I wish to say.

3. Benjamin hath sinned : ] the other tribes gird themselves
for vengeance, and not without God s approval. In fact He
himself appointed the leader of the army. So they fight,
relying both on the stronger force and on the better cause, and,
what is more, on the divine favour. But how terrible is God
in His purposes towards the children of men ! 2 The avengers
of wickedness gave their backs to the accursed, and the many
fled before the few. But they return to the Lord, and the
Lord bids them go up. 3 They go up afresh, and again they
are scattered and confounded. So at first with God s favour,
and then at God s command, the righteous engage in a
righteous contest, and nevertheless are overcome. But they
were found as superior in faith as they were inferior in the
fight. What do you suppose our forces would make of me if
at my exhortation they were again to go up, and again be over
come ? Are they likely to listen to me if I were to advise
them for the third time to march, and resume the work in
which once and again they have been frustrated ? And yet the
1 Judges n. fl, 2 P>. Ixvi. =. s Judges xx. 28.

40 On Consideration

I Israelites, taking no account of their double disappointment,
obeyed for the third time, and were then victorious. But we
shall perhaps be asked, How are to know that the word has
gone forth from the Lord ? What signs do you work, that
we may believe you ? It is not for me to answer these
questions ; I must spare my modesty. Do you answer for
me, and for yourself, according as you have heard and seen,
or, at all events, according as God has given you inspiration.

4. But you are, perhaps, wondering why I take this line, so
different from what I purposed. I do so, not because I have
forgotten my purpose, but because I do not consider it foreign
to my purpose. If I remember, the subject of my discourse
to your Excellency was to be Consideration. And certainly
the matter to which I have referred is important and requires
much consideration. But if great matters ought to be con
sidered by great men, who is so well qualified for the work as
yourself, who have no equal upon earth ? You will, I am sure,
according to the wisdom and power given to you from above,
deal with this matter. It is not consistent with my humility
to tell you that such and such things should be done. It is
enough for me to have intimated that something ought to be
done for the consolation of the Church, and to stop the mouth
of them that speak wickedly. Let these few remarks stand
for my apology, so that whatever your conscience may tell you
about me you may from my own lips know enough to excuse
me, and yourself also. I cannot hope for this from those who
judge by results, but with you I am safe. The testimony of a
man s conscience is his only perfect and complete excuse. To
me it is a very small matter that I should be judged by those
who call good evil and evil good, who put light for darkness
and darkness for light. 1 And if one of the two things must

1 Isa. v. 20.

Book II, Chapter i 41

happen, I had rather that men murmured against us than
against God. It is good for me if He condescends to use
- a shield. I gladly welcome the tongues that speak
against me, and the poisoned darts of blasphemers, if only
they may not reach Him. I do not refuse to be dishonoured
if only violence be not done to the glory of God. Who can
give me the privilege of glorying thus, ; For thy sake have
I suffered reproach, shame hath covered my face ? 1 My
glory is to become a partner with Christ, who says, the
reproaches of them that reproached thee have fallen upon
me. 2 Now at last my pen shall return to its proper work,
and my discourse go on its way to the goal we set before us.

CHAPTER II

Consideration distinguished from Contemplation

5. And first of all consider the word. I do not wish it to
be regarded as exactly synonymous with contemplation, because
the latter is concerned with the certainty of things, the former
more fitly with their investigation. Accordingly, contemplation
may be defined as the soul s true unerring intuition, or as
the unhesitating apprehension of truth. But consideration is
thought earnestly directed to research, or the application of the
mind to the search for truth ; though in practice the two terms
are indifferently used for one another.

1 I -. Uix. 7. - It.id. v. io.

42 On Consideration

CHAPTER III

Consideration fourfold (/) The Tope himself,
(2) things below him, (3) things around him,
(4) things above him

6. Now as regards the fruit of consideration, I think there
are, as they occur to me, four subjects worthy of your con
sideration yourself, things below you, things around you,
and things above you. Let your consideration begin with
yourself, lest, while you neglect yourself, you waste your
energies on other things. What does it profit you if you gain
the whole world and lose your single self ? * Though you be
wise, you lack wisdom to yourself, if you do not belong to
yourself. But how far do you lack wisdom ? In my opinion,
altogether. Though you know all mysteries, though you
know the breadth of the earth, the height of the heavens, the
depth of the sea, if you know not yourself, you will be like a
man building without a foundation, and will succeed not in
rearing an edifice, but in making a ruin. Whatever structure
you raise outside yourself will be like a heap of dust before the
wind. He, therefore, is not wise who is not wise to himself.
The wise man will be wise to himself, and will first of all
drink of his own well. Let, then, your consideration begin at
yourself ; and not only so, let it end there. Whithersoever it
may roam, recall it to yourself, and it will bring with it the
fruit of salvation. To yourself be first, to yourself be last.
Copy the example of the Great Father of all, who both sends
forth His word and keeps it with Him. Consideration is
your word ; if it goes forth, let it not go away ; let it so go
on that it go not out ; let it so go outside that it be not gone
1 St. Matt. xvi. 26.

Book II, Chapter Hi 43

altogether. In winning salvation let no one be nearer and
dearer to you than the only one of your mother. 1 Think of
nothing contrary to your own salvation. In saying * contrary ,
I have said too little ; I ought to have said besides your salva
tion. Whatever offers itself to consideration, if it has not
some bearing on your own sahation. ought to be rejected.

CHAPTER IV

The threefold Consideration leading to self- know
ledge. Firstly, What the Pope is

7. And this consideration of yourself falls into three
divisions, if you consider what, who, and what manner of
man, you are. The first refers to your nature, the second to
your person, and the third to your character. If, for example.
it be asked, what? a man ; who? pope or chief pontiff;
what manner of man ? kind, gentle, and so on. The inves
tigation of the first of these may be more the work of a
philosopher than of an apostolic man ; still, in the definition
of a man as a rational mortal animal, there is something which
you may, if you choose, carefully ponder. There is nothing in
it contrary either to your profession or your rank, but there is
something which may contribute to your salvation. For if
you consider these two attributes together, rationality and
mortality, you gather good fruit the fact of your mortality
humbles your reason, while your reason supports you under the

1 St. Bernard perhaps has in mind Cant. vi. 8 My dove, my
undefiled (or perfect) is but OIK- ; she is the only one of her mother; she
is the choice one of her that bare her. Symbolically, the one dove it
the soul intent upon the highest good . . . *< una // Deo vacet. See
A Lapide, Commentary.

44 On Consideration

thought of your mortality, and a prudent man will not neglect
either side. If the point before us requires further considera
tion, it shall be dealt with later on, perhaps more profitably,
when we pass the whole of our work under review.

CHAPTER V
Secondly, Who the Tope is, and whence he comes

8. We must next notice who you are, and what your origin
was. I have used the word origin , but I think I had better-
pass that over and leave it to your perception. This I do say,
that it would be an unworthy thing for you, knowing the
perfection you have left, to stop short of the perfection which
lies before you. Should you not blush to be a minnow among
the whales when you remember that you were a whale among
the minnows ? You have not forgotten your first profession ;
it is taken out of your hands, but you still have some thought
for it, and even affection. To keep it in view will not be
unprofitable in the framing of your several commands, judge
ments, ordinances. This consideration makes you a despiser
of honour even in the midst of honour. And that is a great
thing. Lay it to heart ; it is your shield to protect you from
the arrow Man being in honour is without understanding . 1
Say, therefore, to yourself, I was of low estate in the house of
the Lord. What means this, that, poor and lowly though I
was, I am raised to rule over peoples and kingdoms ? Who
am ], or what is my father s house, that I should sit above
dignitaries r He who said to me, Friend, go up higher , 2
surely trusts that I shall be a friend. If I am found less, it is

1 Ps. xlix. 13. a St. Luke xiv. 10.

Book //, Chapter v 4f

not indeed well with me. He who has raised me up can also
cast me down. Too late should I complain, Thou hast taken
me up and dashed me to the ground. 1 There must be no
flattery of your exalted rank, when there is more cause for
anxiety. The rank magnifies the danger, the anxiety manifests
the friend ! Let us give good heed to this, unless we wish at
length with shame to take the lowest place.

CHAPTER VI

The zeal befitting ecclesiastical rulers

9. We cannot disguise the fact that we must most carefully
observe why it is that you have been set above other men. I
certainly do not think it is that you may exercise lordship over
them. For even the prophet, when he was in like manner
exalted, was told to pluck up and to break down, to destroy
and to overthrow ; to build, and to plant . Which of these
has the ring of pride in it ? Is it not more correct to say that
the labourer s task typifies spiritual toil ? And if we are to
think highly of ourselves, we should perceive that a burden of
srma- is laid upon us, not the privilege of lordship bestowed.
I am not greater than the prophet ; and if haply I am his
equal in authority, still there is no comparison between our
deserts. Speak thus to yourself, and do you who teach
others teach yourself. Suppose you are as one of the prophets.
Is not that enough for you ? Yes, and more than enough.
But by the grace of God you are what you are. What is
that ? Suppose you are a prophet, .ire you more than a
prophet ? If you are wise you will be content with the
measure wherewith God hath measured to you. For what is
1 Pt. cii. 10. 2 Jer. i. IO.

4.6 On Consideration

more is of evil. Learn by the prophet s example to govern,
not so much for the purpose of commanding as of doing what
the time requires. Learn the lesson that, if you are to do the
work of a prophet, what you want is not a sceptre, but a hoe.
The prophet does not rise to reign, but to root out the weeds.
Do you not think that you, too, may find something to be done
in your Master s field ? Yes, and plenty of it. The prophets
have surely not been able to clean all the ground ; they left
something for their sons, the apostles, to do ; and your
progenitors have left something for you. Nor will you prove
equal to the whole task. You will assuredly leave something
for your successor, and he for others, and 50 on to the end.
Accordingly, we find that about the eleventh hour the labourers
were rebuked for idleness, and sent into the vineyard. Your
predecessors, the apostles, were told that the harvest was
indeed plenteous, but the labourers were few V Claim for
yourself the inheritance of your fathers. For if you are son,
then you are also the heir. 2 That you may prove yourself to
be the heir, diligently watch, and forgo sluggish ease, lest to
you also it be said, Why standest thou here all the day idle ? 3
10. Much less ought you to be found dissolved in luxury,
or proudly exhibiting yourself. The will of the testator
bequeaths to you nothing like this. Need I say that if you
are content with its provisions you will inherit care and toil
rather than glory and riches. Does Peter s chair flatter you ?
It is a watch-tower whence, in a word, you exercise super
vision ; the very name of bishop reminds you not of lordship,
but of duty. How fitting it is that you are set on high where
you can view all things, inasmuch as you are appointed watch
man over all. In very truth the legitimate issue of that
prospect is not ease, but readiness for battle. Where ease is
1 St. Matt. ix. 37. - Gal. iv. 7. 8 St. Matt. xx. 6,

Booh //, Chapter vi 47

unlawful, what occasion is there for glorying ? And case is
out of the question when you are burdened with the constant
care of all the churches. It must be so ; for what else did
the holy ajx>stle transmit to you ? Such as I have/ he says,
4 give I thce. 1 What is that? One thing I know it is not
gold, nor silver, for he himself says, -Sil\er and gold I have-
not. 2 If you happen to have them, use them not for your
own gratification, but to meet the necessities of the time. You
will then be using them as though you used them not. In
them^-Kes as regards man s spiritual welfare, they are
neither good nor b^d ; yet the use of them is good, the
pose is bad ; anxiety about them is worse ; the greed of
gain still more disgraceful. Suppose that on the strength
of some other plea you may claim them, you cannot do so by
apostolic right. For the apostle could not give what he did
not himself possess. What he had, that he gave the care,
as I have said, of the churches. Did he bequeath to you
lordship over them ? Hear what he says, Not lording it over
the charge allotted to you, but making yourselves example- to
the Hock. 3 And do not suppose that the words were prompted
by humility only, and are not based on truth. In the Gospel
there is the Lord s warning, The kings of the Gentiles hau
lordship over them, and they that have authority over them are
called Benefactors. * And then He adds, - But ye shall not
be so. 5 It is quite clear; the apostles are forbidden to
exercise lordship.

i i . Go then, if you dare, and either, as a lord over God s
heritage, assume the office of an apostle, or as an apostolic man
exercise lordship. It is clear that you are debarred both. If
you wish to have both together, you will lose both. You must

1 Act*, iii. 6. a Ibid. 1 Pet. v. 3.

4 St. Luke xxii. 25 Ibid.

48 .On Consideration

otherwise think yourself excepted from the number of those of
whom God thus complains, They have reigned, but not by
me ; they have been princes, and I knew it not. 1 Now if
you like to reign without God, you have whereof to glory, but
not before God. But if we uphold the prohibition, let us give
heed to the commandment, He that is the greater among you,
let him become as the younger ; and he that is chief, as he that
doth serve. 2 Here is the apostolic pattern ; lordship is
forbidden, service is enjoined ; and this latter is also com
mended by the example of the Lawgiver Himself, who
immediately adds, but I am in the midst of you as he that
sen eth. 3 Who, then, would think he has nothing whereof
to glory when he bears the title by which the Lord of Glory
distinguished Himself? Rightly doth Paul glory therein
when he says, Are they servants of Christ? so am I. 4
And then he adds, I speak as one beside himself, I more.
In labours more abundantly, in prisons more abundantly,
in stripes above measure, in deaths oft. Oh ! splendid
service. What sovereignty does it not excel in glory ? If
you must glory, the pattern of the saints is set before you, the
glory of the apostles is your model. Does that seem to you
insignificant.? Oh ! that some one would give me the power of
becoming like the saints in glory ! The prophet cries aloud.
* Thy friends, O God, are too honourable for me, their
sovereignty hath grown too strong. 5 The apostle exclaims,
God forbid that I should glory save in the cross of our Lord
Jesus Christ. 6

12. I would have you always glory in this the best sort
of glory, that which apostles and prophets chose for them
selves, and handed on to you. In your abundant labours, in

1 Hos. viii. 4. 2 St. Luke xxii. 26. 3 Ibid. 27.

4 2 Cor. xi. 23. 5 Ps. cxxxix. 17. Gal. vi. 14.

Booh //, Chapter vi 49

the cross of Christ, recognize your inheritance. Happy
was the man who could say, I laboured more than all. 1
Here is glorying, but there is in it no vanity, no softness, no
pride. If the work alarms, the reward invites. For every
man shall receive according to his work. And if he laboured
more than all, still he did not do all that was to be done, and
there is yet room. Go into your Lord s field, and diligently
consider the dense thicket of thorns and thistles which, accord
ing to the ancient curse, covers the ground even to this day.
Go out, I say, into the world ; for the field is the world, and
it is given into your charge. Go into it, not as a lordly owner,
but as a steward, that you may see and attend to that whereof
you must give account. Go, I would say ; traverse it with steps
of zealous care, and careful zeal. For even they who were
bidden go into all the world did not compass it with bodily
presence, but with their forethought. And do you lift up as it
were the eyes of your consideration, and see the lands, if they
are not rather dry for burning than white for harvest. How
often will what you took for the fruits of the earth, if you
examine them carefully, prove to be briars ; nay rather, not even
briars ; they are old and rotten trees, but certainly not fruit trees ;
their only fruit is swine s food, acorns and husks. How long
are they to cumber the ground ? If you go out, and clearly
see them, will you not be ashamed that your axe is idle?
Will you not be ashamed to have had the apostolic sickle put
into your hand for nothing ?

13. Once upon a time the patriarch Isaac had gone into
this field ; it was when Rebecca first met him ; and, in the
words of Scripture, he had gone out to meditate. 2 He went
to meditate, you must go to extirpate. In your case medita
tion should already have led the way : the time for acting is
1 i Cor. xv. io. 2 Gen. xxiv. 63.

D

ST. BERNARD

5o On Consideration

at hand. If you now begin to hesitate, it will be too late.

According to the Saviour s counsel, 1 you should have first sat

down, and estimated the work, gauged your strength, weighed

your wisdom, ascertained the relative value of things, and

calculated the cost of virtue. Come then, reckon that there

is still time for casting up the account, although the time for

meditation on the plan has gone by. If you have given your

heart to the work, you must now give your tongue and hand

as well. Gird on your sword, the sword of the Spirit, which

is the word of God. 2 Glorify your right hand and arm

by taking vengeance upon nations, by rebuking peoples, by

binding their kings with chains, and their nobles with fetters

of iron. If you do these things, you honour both your

ministry and yourself the minister. That is no ordinary

sovereignty. In virtue of it you drive out evil beasts from

your borders, so that your flocks may be safely led into their

pastures. You will vanquish the wolves, but not lord it over

the sheep, the care of which you of course undertook that you

might feed them, not oppress them. If you have well

considered who you are, you are not ignorant that this is your

duty. Moreover, if you know and do not, it is sin to you. 3

You have not forgotten the passage, the servant who knew

his master s will, and did unworthy things, shall be beaten

with many stiipes. 4 The prophets and apostles were wont

to do as I suggest. They were brave in war, not voluptuaries

robed in silk. If you are a son of apostles and prophets, do

as they did. Prove the nobility of your descent by conduct

such as theirs; the only source of their nobility was the

ingenuousness of their character, and the fortitude of their

faith. Through this they conquered kingdoms, wrought

1 St. Luke xiv. 28. 2 Eph. vi. 17. 3 St. James iv. 17.

4 St. Luke xii. 47.

Book II, Chapter vi 5-1

righteousness, gained promises in return. 1 Here is the con
veyance of the inheritance of your fathers : I have put it before
you, and in it you may see the portion which falls to you. Be
clad with fortitude, and the inheritance is yours. Have faith,
have wisdom, but the wisdom of the saints, which is the fear
of the Lord, and you have what belongs to you. The whole
ancestral estate is yours by clear right. Virtue is the richest
estate. Humility is a good estate ; founded thereon the
whole spiritual edifice grows into a holy temple in the Lord.
Through humility some have even possessed the gates of their
enemies. For which of the virtues is so mighty to subdue
the pride of demons and the tyranny of men ? But though it
be to every person alike a tower of strength from the face of the
enemy, somehow or other, the greater the man the greater its
acknowledged influence ; the more distinguished its possessor.
the more distinction it confers. It is eminently so in the case
of the chief pontiff. No gem in all his gorgeous attire shines
with a clearer and a purer light. For the higher he is above
his fellows, the more through his humility he conspicuously
surpasses not only other men, but himself also.

CHAPTER VII
Who the Tope is (continued}

14. I shall perhaps be blamed for leaving the first part of
my subject inadequately treated, and going off into the second ;
it will be said that my pen is beginning to tell what manner of
man you ought to be, though it has not fully stated who you
are. I suppose it blushed to see a man standing naked on the

i Hcb. xi. 33.
D 2

7

f2 On Consideration

pinnacle of power, and hastened to clothe him in the robes of
office. Without these the more clearly you are seen the more
unseemly you appear. Can the desolation of a city that is set
on a hill be hid ? or the smoke of a lamp extinguished on the
stand escape detection ? We remember An ape upon the
house-top : a silly king upon the throne . Now lend me your
ears as I sing my song ; it may not be altogether pleasant, but
it will do you good. The union of exalted rank with a base
spirit is a monstrosity ; so is the joining together of the chief
seat and the lowest life ; or of a tongue that speaketh great
things, and an idle hand ; or of much talk, and no fruit ; or of
a severe look, and light conduct ; or of great authority, and no
steadfastness. There is the mirror : let the foul countenance
recognize itself, but you may rejoice that no resemblance to it
is found in yours. Still I would have you look into the
mirror lest haply, although you may have good grounds for
self-satisfaction, there may not be wanting reasons for dis
satisfaction. I would have you glory in the testimony of
your conscience, but none the less I would have you humbled
by that same testimony. It is seldom a man can say I know
nothing by myself V You walk more warily in the ways of
goodness if you take care that evil does not lurk there.
Wherefore, as I have said, you should know yourself, so that
in the difficulties of your position, and such difficulties do
exist, you may not only enjoy a good conscience, but, what is
more, may also learn your defects. For who is free from
defects ? He lacks everything who thinks he lacks nothing.
What if you are sovereign pontiff? Does it follow that
because you are sovereign pontiff you are supremely perfect ?
Let me tell you that you are at the bottom if you think you are
at the top. Who is at the top ? He to whom nothing can
1 i Cor. iv. 4.

Book //, Chapter i-ii 5-3

be added. You greatly err if you think you are the man.
God forbid ! You are no^ of those who make dignities
identical with virtues. You knew what virtue was before you
were acquainted with rank. Let emperors and others who
have not been afraid to be worshipped as divine enjoy that
opinion : l Nebuchadnezzar for example, Alexander, An-
tiochus, Herod. As for yourself, consider that you bear the
title of * supreme not absolutely, but relatively. And when
I say this, do not suppose that I am comparing your merits
with other men s. I refer to functions of the ministry. Let
a man so account of you as of a minister of Christ, and,
without prejudice to the holiness of any one, beyond dispute
the chief of ministers. I would you strove to be supreme in
other respects, and did not think yourself supreme, or wish to
be so regarded before you are. For how can you be pro
ficient if you are already self-sufficient ? It follows that there
must be no reluctance to find out what is lacking, or you will
have to confess that you lack modesty. Say with your
predecessor, k Not as though I had received, or were already
perfect. 2 And again, I count not myself to have appre
hended. 3 This is the knowledge of the saints ; it is far
from that which puffeth up. He who adds this knowledge
adds sorrow, 4 but it is a sorrow which no wise man ever seeks
to escape . It is, forsooth, a healing sorrow, by means of
which the deadly stupor of a hard and impenitent heart is
excluded. This is why we deem him a wise man who could
say My sorrow is ever in my sight . ft 1 must now gather up
the fragments, if any remain, of the topic from which not long
ago we turned aside.

1 Viz. that dignities are identical with virtues

2 Phil. iii. 12. 3 Ibid. * Kcclec. i. 18. \.\\viii. 17.

5" 4 On Consideration

CHAPTER VIII
The dignity and power of the Tope

15. Come, let us still more closely investigate what you
are, that is to say, the character you represent for a time in
the Church of God. Who are you ? the chief priest, the
sovereign pontiff. You are the prince of bishops, the head
of the apostles ; in priority you are Abel, in government
Noah, as a patriarch you are Abraham, in order Melchise-
dech, in rank Aaron, in authority Moses, as a judge you are
Samuel, in power Peter, in virtue of your anointing you are
Christ. You are he to whom the keys have been committed,
and the sheep entrusted. There are, indeed, other door
keepers of heaven, and other shepherds of flocks, but as you
have received both names in a manner different from the rest,
so for you they bear a more glorious meaning. Other pastors
have each their several flocks assigned to them ; to you all
the flocks have been entrusted, one flock under one shepherd.
Do you ask for proof of that ? It is the Lord s word. For
to which, I will not say of the bishops, but of the apostles,
have all the sheep been committed so absolutely and unre
servedly ? If you love me, Peter, feed my sheep. ! What
sheep ? Are we to say the people of such and such a city,
or region, or, at all events, kingdom ? My sheep , He says.
Is it not clear that He has not specified some, but committed
to him all ? There is no exception where there is no dis
tinction. And perhaps the fellow disciples of Peter were pre
sent when our Lord by charging him, and no one else, with the
care of all the flocks, commended to them all the unity of one

1 St. John xxi. 15.

Book //, Chapter viii ff

flock and one shepherd, according as it is written, * My dove,
my beautiful, my perfect, is but one. 1 Where there is unity
there is perfection. The other numbers are not perfect, but
admit of division, falling short of unity. Hence it is that
other bishops, understanding the mystery, have shared the
various nations between them. In fact, James, who seemed
to be a pillar of the Church, 8 was content with Jerusalem, and
gave up universal dominion to Peter. 3 Admirably was James
placed there to raise up seed to his dear Brother in the place
where his Brother was slain, for he was the Lord s brother.
Now if the Lord s brother yielded to Peter, what other man
can dare to trespass on Peter s prerogative ?

1 6. So then, according to your own authorities, other
bishops are called to a share in responsibility, you are called
to the exercise of plenary power. The power of other men is
confined within fixed limits ; yours extends to those who have
power over their fellows. Have you not power, for sufficient
reason, to shut heaven against a bishop, and even deliver him
to Satan ? Your prerogative, therefore, whether the power of
the keys or the pastorate of the Hocks, is unassailable. Let
me point out something else no less confirmatory of your pre
rogative. The disciples were in a boat when our Lord
appeared, 4 and, which was more delightful still, appeared in
His risen body. Peter, knowing that it was the Lord, cast
himself into the sea, and thus reached his Master, while the
rest came in the boat. What does that mean ? It was surely a
sign of the unique pontificate of Peter, intended to show that
while the others had charge, each of his own ship, he was en
trusted with not one ship, but the government of the whole
world. For the sea is the world, and ships are churches. Hence

1 Cant. vi.8. 2 Gal. ii. <). s Ibid. i. 19.

1 M. John xxi. 3, 4.

$6 On Consideration

it is that on another occasion, like his Lord, he walked upon
the water, and thus proved himself the one and only Vicar of
Christ, destined to rule over not one people, but all, that is if
the "many waters are many peoples V So then while each
of the other bishops has his own ship, you are in command of
the greatest, the Universal Church throughout the world, the
sum of all the other churches put together.

CHAPTER IX

Sf. Bernard invites the Tope to consider
he is ty nature

17. Now we see tube you are; but do not forget what you
are. I, at all events, have not forgotten my promise to return
to that point on a fitting occasion. And is it not most fitting
to combine the consideration of who you are with the con
sideration of what you previously were ? Why do I say
were ? You are still what you were. Why cease to regard
what you have not ceased to be ? What you have been, and
what you are, is one and the same consideration ; your new
official character is a different matter. In the scrutiny of
yourself the one should not exclude the other. For you are,
as I have said, still what you were, and no less what you
were than what you have since become, perhaps even more.
In fact you were that by nature ; this you have borrowed ;
you have been changed into it. The former is not thrown
away, the latter is thrown in. Let us treat them both together ;
for, as I remember saying before, when they are compared
one with the other they will both become more useful. When,
1 Apoc. xvii. 15.

Book II, Chapter /.v 57

father back, you were considering what you are, I told you
to consider your nature as a man : for you were born a man.
Moreover, if a person inquire who you personally are, the
answer will be the name of the character you sustain, viz. a
bishop, and this you have become : that you were not by
birth. Now which of these seems to you to be absolutely
your own, and above all else to belong to you ? That which
you have become, or that which you were born ? Must we
not say that which you were born ? I therefore counsel you
to mainly consider what you mainly are, that is to say,
a man ; such you were by birth.

1 8. Nor should you only observe what you were born, viz.,
a man, but also what manner of man, if you do not wish to be
defrauded of the fruit and profit of your consideration. Away
then with these hereditary girdles which have been accursed
from the beginning. Tear to pieces the covering of leaves
that conceal the shame but do not cure the wound. Strip off
the disguise of this fleeting honour, and the tinsel of this sham
glory, so that you may consider yourself in your bare naked
ness, for naked you came out of your mother s womb. 1 Did
you then wear the sacred fillet ? Had you then the glittering
gems about your person ? Were you robed in flowery silks ?
Did the plumes then wave upon your head ? Were you
decked with gold and silver ? If you scatter all this like
morning clouds quickly passing by and soon to altogether pass
away, if you blow them from before the face of your considera
tion, you will behold a man naked, poor, wretched, pitiable ;
a man grieving that he is a man. blushing at his nakedness,
weeping that he is born, complaining that he is a man born
to toil, not to honour, 2 born of a woman and thereby a guilty
crratui. . living but a little while and therefore in constant
1 Job i. 21. 2 Ibid. v. 7. Ibid. xiv. I.

y8 On Consideration

fear, full of misery and therefore ever bathed in tears. And,
truly, miseries abound, for they are those of body and soul
together. How can he escape calamity who is born in sin,
with a frail body and a barren mind ? Of a truth he must
be full of misery, who through transmitted corruption, the
sentence of death, bears the double load of weakness of body
and foolishness of heart. It will do you good to unite these
two considerations. While you think of yourself as supreme
pontiff, bear in mind as well that you not only were, but are,
worthless ashes. In your thinking, imitate nature; and,
which is worthier of you, imitate the Author of nature, by
associating the highest and the lowest things. Has not nature
in the person of man bound together poor clay and the breath
of life ? Has not the Author of nature in His own Person
tempered together the Word and clay ? Take then for your
pattern both our original constitution and the mystery of our
redemption, in order that, though you sit on high, you may
not be high-minded, but may think lowly of yourself, and
condescend to men of low degree.

CHAPTER X
W hat manner of man the Tope is

19. Accordingly, if you consider how great you are, think
also, and above all, what manner of man you are. This con
sideration keeps you well within yourself 1 ; it surfers you not
to fly from yourself, nor to walk in great matters, or in things
too wonderful for you. 2 Take your stand within yourself;
you will not then sink beneath your level, nor rise above it,

1 See above. 2 Ps. cxxxi. I. R. V. Margin.

Book 11, Chapter .v f9

you will not go too far, nor spread out too wide. Keep to
the middle if you wish to keep moderation. The mid way is
the safe way. Moderation abides in the mean, and moderation
is virtue, livery abiding place outside the bounds of modera
tion is only exile to the wise man. Wherefore, he will not
dwell in the length, that is, beyond moderation ; nor even in
the breadth, that is, outside it ; nor, again, in the height,
or in the depth, one of which is above moderation, the other
beneath it. In fact length mostly implies going beyond
bounds ; breadth may mean a rent, height a fall, and
depth an abyss. I say these things the more plainly that
you may not think I am repeating the apostle s exhortation
to comprehend with all saints the length, and breadth, and
height, and depth. 1 This belongs to another sort of discussion,
and a different occasion. Just now by length I mean a
man s promising himself a long life ; by k breadth , his being
racked with sujx?rfluous cares ; by height , his trusting too
much in himself; by depth , his being unduly depressed. Well
then, if a man measures out for himself distant times, is he not
really starting to go too far ? Is he not in his far-reaching
anxiety passing the bounds of life ? Thus it is that men,
exiled from themselves in this present life through forgetful-
ness, are led by useless anxiety to migrate to distant ages,
which will not profit, nay rather, may never be. Likewise,
the heart which is spread over many things must of net
be torn by many cares, and once it is too thin there comes
a rent. Further, if a man have overweening confidence in
himself, what is there for him but a headlong fall ? For you
have read what is written, k Before a fall the heart is lifted
up. M And on the side of excessive timidity, what is depres
sion but in a sense the loss of oneself in despair ? A brave
1 Kph. iii. 18. 2 Prov. xviii. 13.

6o On Consideration

man will not be so far depressed. A prudent man will not be
misled by the uncertainty of a long life. A modest man will
moderate his cares ; he will refrain from superfluities, and will
not deny himself what is necessary. A righteous man, more
over, will not venture on what is above him, but will say with
righteous Job, If I be righteous, yet will I not lift up my
head. 1

CHAPTER XI
The necessity for self-examination

20. Let me beg you, then, in this consideration of yourself
to walk with caution. Let perfect equity be your companion,
so that you may not allow yourself more than is due, nor
deprive yourself of more than is right. Now you fall into the
first of these errors not only by claiming goodness which you
have not, but also by taking credit for goodness which you
have. Carefully distinguish how far you are what you are
through your^ own efforts, and how far through the gift of
God, and let there be no deceit in your spirit. Deceit there
will be unless you faithfully separate what belongs to yourself,
and honestly surrender to God the things which are God s.
I do not doubt that you are fully convinced that what is evil
in you comes from yourself, your goodness from the Lord.
Certainly while we consider what manner of man you are, we
must also recall to memory the sort of man you were ; we
must compare the end with the beginning. We must see
whether you have advanced in virtue, in wisdom, in under
standing, in sweetness of character, or whether, which God
forbid ! you have fallen away. We must note whether you

1 Jobx. 15.

Book //, Chapter AY rti

are more patient or more impatient than you were wont to be ;
more prone to wrath, or more gentle ; more insolent, or more
humble ; more affable, or more austere ; more easily entreated,
or more obstinate; more pusillanimous, or more magnani
mous ; more earnest, or somewhat more careless ; more filled
with the fear of God, or, it may be, more confident than you
ought to be. What a wide field lies before you in this kind of
consideration ! I therefore mention a few points, indicating, as
it were, some seed plots, though I am not myself the sower,
but only the giver of seed to the sower. You should
have a clear idea of your zeal, your clemency, and also your
discretion, which is the regulator of both those virtues ; you
should see what you are like in forgiving injuries and in
avenging them ; how far on both sides you prudently regard
degree, place, and time. In the practice of these three
virtues these three things must be thoroughly considered, lest
if the conditions be not satisfied the virtues cease to be
virtues ; for there is nothing in their nature to make them
virtues; they are such only by the right practice of them.
They themselves tell us that they are indifferent . It is pos
sible for you, either by abusing them, or by confounding them
with one another, to turn them into vices ; on the other hand
you may by the good and methodical use of them make them
virtues. When the eye of discretion is darkened, they are
wont to jump to conclusions and occupy their own stand
points. Now there are two causes of this dim sight anger
and excessive tenderness. The rebuke of judgement is en
feebled by the latter, precipitated by the former. Must not
a pious clemency be endangered on the one side, or a righteous
zeal on the other ? The eye that is disordered through anger
views nothing in the light of clemency ; the eye bedewed
with tears of womanly tenderness does not see straight. You

62 On Consideration

will not be innocent if you either punish him to whom, it may
be, mercy should be shown, or spare him who ought to have
been punished.

CHAPTER XII

The spiritual effects of prosperity and
adversity

21. And I would not have you disguise the manner of man
you have found yourself in tribulations. If you have found
yourself steadfast in your own, sympathetic in other men s,
rejoice. Here you have evidence of an upright heart. On
the contrary, if perchance you are found to be impatient in
your own trials, and are nevertheless seen to be by no means
compassionate in other men s, this is a mark of a heart full of
perversity. How has it been with you in prosperity? Is
there nothing to call for consideration ? Of course there
is, if you carefully observe how seldom you find a man
who does not, at least to some extent, in time of prosperity
relax his vigilance and self-discipline. As regards discipline,
when was not prosperity to the unwary what fire is to wax, or
the rays of the sun to snow and ice ? David was wise,
Solomon wiser; but, flattered by unlooked-for success, the
one in part and the other altogether acted foolishly. He is
a great man, who, when he falls into adversity, does not fall
away at least a little from his wisdom ; and he is as great
who has been favoured with the smiles of Fortune without
becoming the butt of her ridicule. And yet it is easier to
find men who have kept their wisdom when fortune was
against them, than it is to find men who have not lost it when
fortune was on their side. He deserves our choice, and he

Booh //, Chapter .v/V 63

is a great man, who in the days of prosperity has at all events
withstood the stealthy approaches of unbecoming laughter, or
rudeness of speech ; who has not bestowed too much attention
upon dress, or pampered the body.

CHAPTER XIII

Idleness, trifling, and profitless conversation
to be shunned

22. The wise man rightly admonishes us that if we are to
write words of wisdom we must have leisure ; * still we must
be on our guard even against leisure itself. We must accord
ingly shun idleness, the mother of trifles, the step- mother of
virtues. With men of the world trifles are trifles ; in the
mouth of a priest they are blasphemies. Yet, if sometimes
they occur in conversation, we must perhaps put up with
them ; reply to them in the same strain we never ought.
Rather we ought cautiously and prudently to put a stop to
trifling. We should do our best to break out into something
serious to which the company would listen not only with
profit, but with pleasure, and refrain from idle talk. You
have consecrated your mouth to the Gospel ; to open it for
such things is unlawful, to accustom it to them is sacrilege.
The lips of the priest, says one, keep knowledge, and
men look for the law from his mouth ; a certainly not trifles,
or idle tales. It is not enough that buffoonery, which they
glorify as wit and polish, be removed far from your mouth ;
it ought also to be banished far from your ear. It is an

1 Ecclus. xxxviii. 35. - NU1. ii. 7-

6 4 On Consideration

abomination that you are moved to laughter, it is more abomin
able for you to move others. But whether it is more dam
nable to disparage a man, or listen to a disparager, I could
not easily tell.

CHAPTER XIV

The Tope warned against accepting the person
of any

23. I need not trouble you to look at avarice, for you are
said to value money no more than chaff. 1 There is, assuredly,
no reason to dread your judgements on that account. But
there is a lurking danger which no less frequently, and no less
banefully, besets the judgement seat ; and as regards this,
I should be very sorry if any mischief were latent in your
conscience, and you were unaware of it. Do you ask to
what I refer ? The acceptance of men s persons. Consider
y yourself guilty of no small sin if you welcome sinners, and do
not rather decide the causes of the deserving. There is also
another vice ; if you feel yourself to be free from it you will
in my opinion sit in solitary state among all those whom
1 have known to occupy the chair, because you have really,
in a singular measure, raised yourself above yourself as the
prophet says. 2 I mean an easy credulity, a very crafty little

1 This was very rare, the property of the Church being claimed entirely
by the Popes of the Middle Ages. Innocent II asserted the feudal right
of the Roman Pontiff with much emphasis at the second Lateran Council
(A.D. 1139). The Proctors of the Peers and Commons of England bit
terly complained at the first Council of Lyons (A. D. 1245). See Hussey,
Rise of the Papal Power, p. 189, &c.

2 Lament, iii. 28. Vulg.

Booh 11, Chapter xi 6<>

fox, against whose tricks, so far as I have ascertained, not
one of our great men has taken adequate precaution. That
was why they were so often angry, all for nothing ; that was
why they frequently abandoned the innocent, and delivered
premature judgements against men who were not in court.
But I congratulate you (and I am not afraid that you will
brand me as a flatterer), I congratulate you, I say, on having
hitherto presided without much complaint about any of these
things ; whether you are also free from fault, see for your
self. Now your consideration must be directed to those
things which are below you. But here we start afresh ; for,
bearing in mind your many occupations, the shorter the
discourse the better.

ST. BERNARD

BOOK III

[ In the third Book St. Bernard treats of the consideration
the Pope ought to have towards those that are under him,
and they are the faithful throughout the world. There is
no poison or arms that he ought to dread more than the spirit
of tyranny. He next deals with the Pope s duty towards
those not in the Church. He then protests against the
abuse of Appeals to Rome, afterwards condemns the like
abuse of Exemptions, discusses Dispensations, and concludes
by urging Eugenius to see that strict discipline is maintained,
and that ecclesiastical institutions are respected. He recom
mends him more particularly to enforce the reforms enjoined
at the Council of Rheims relating to the dress and manners
of the clergy, as also those respecting the age and qualifica
tions of such as were to be admitted to benefices (Du Pin).

Appeals. The Sardican Canon (A.D. 347) gave the Pope
power to receive appeals. Pope Nicholas (A.D. 867) asserted
that no question in the Church could be decided without the
consent of the Roman Pontiff. Gregory VII went further
in holding that Councils and Canons derive their force from
the authority of Rome. Thither, accordingly, every eccle-
.siastical cause was to be carried for final determination. All
Europe, and England especially, cried out against the grievous
burden for centuries (Hussey, Rise of the Papal Power).
The system, as St. Bernard knew it, was an elaborate fabric
built up by the Canon Law of times subsequent to Charle
magne upon the basis of the False Decretals. It was a
grand innovation whereby in the West the entire system of
purely ecclesiastical appeals (and indeed of justice) was in
effect perverted and frustrated, viz. the right gradually allowed
of appealing immediately from any ecclesiastical tribunal, high
or low, upon any subject, great or small, to the Pope at once
(Diet, of Christ. Antiq.). St. Bernard s Letters, 178, 179,
1 80, refer to a case in point.

Book 111 67

Exemptions. In the earlier stages of their existence,
monasteries generally availed themselves gladly of the patronage
of the bishop of the diocese. But as they increased in wealth
and power, they struggled to emancipate themselves from his
control. . . . Instances might easily be multiplied of the
almost continual collision in Western Christendom between
the bishops and the monasteries in their dioceses ; in which
the monasteries, almost invariably, had the support of the
pope, and, frequently, of the royal authority (Diet, of Christ.
Slntifj.). Sometimes a bishop, unless by invitation of the
abbot or abbess, could not consecrate an altar, or even by
invitation enter the more private parts of a convent. Nor
could he hinder an appeal to Rome. On the other hand, it
must in justice be stated that the oppressive conduct of the
bishops necessitated some refuge from their arbitrary juris
diction. The grossness of the tyranny practised by some
bishops may be inferred from the fact that the monastic bodies
often appealed against it in synods, and that these, although
composed of bishops, felt themselves obliged to condemn ;t
in strong terms and to forbid its continuance (Robertson,
Ch. Hist., Second Period, Bk. I, ch. ix, p. 202).

Monastic life. Church s Life of Anselm, ch. iii, on The
Discipline of a Norman Monastery , may be profitably con
sulted; also Morison s St. Bernard, pp. 16 sq., 126-33. The
Cistercian order, to which St. Bernard belonged, was founded
A. D. 1098 by Robert, son of a nobleman in Champagne.
His successor at Citeaux, Alberic, laid down the rule for the
new order, and it was afterwards carried out with greater rigour
by the third abbot, Stephen Harding, an Englishman, and one of
Robert s original companions, whose code, entitled the "Charter
of Love", was sanctioned by Pope Calixtus in A.D. 1119.
The Cistercians were to observe the rule of St. Benedict,
without any glosses or relaxations. Their dress was to be
white, agreeably to a pattern which the Blessed Virgin had
shown to Alberic in a vision. They were to accept no gifts
of churches, altars, or tithes. From the ides of September
to Easter they were to eat but one meal daily. Their monas
teries were to be planted in lonely places ; they were to eschew
all pomp, pride, and superfluity ; their services were to be

E 2

<58 On Consideration

simple and plain ; some of the ecclesiastical vestments were
discarded, and those which were retained were to be of
fustian or linen, without any golden ornaments. They were
to have only one iron chandelier ; their censers were to be of
brass or iron ; no plate was allowed, except one chalice and a
tube for the eucharistic wine, and these were, if possible, to be
of silver gilt, but not of gold. The monks were to give
themselves wholly to spiritual employments, while the secular
affairs of the community were to be managed by the bearded
or lay brethren. No serfs were allowed, but hired servants
were employed to assist in labour. In the simplicity of their
church services and furniture, the Cistercians differed from
the Cluniacs, whose ritual was distinguished for its splendour ;
the elder order regarded the principles of the younger as a
reproach to itself, and a rivalry soon sprang up between
them. The white dress, which, although already adopted at
Camaldoli, was a novelty in France, gave offence to the other
monastic societies, who had worn black habits as a symbol of
humility, and regarded the new colour as a pretension to
superior righteousness ; but the Cistercians defended it as an
expression of the joy which became the angelic life of
the cloister (Robertson, p. 706 ; Fleury, Hist. Ecc.,
Bk. LXVII, c. 48). St. Bernard is said to have founded
some 1 60 monasteries; at the general chapter in A.D. H5 1
there were 500 ; in the following century the number had
increased to 1,800, and eventually became much greater.
The order grew rich, and reforms were necessary, but until
the rise of the Mendicants they were the most popular of all the
monastic societies.

Council of Rheims (1148). The chief canons related to
non-residence ; chaplains accepting posts without permission
of the bishop, and taking the oath of canonical obedience ; the
arrest, &c., of the clergy ; the avoidance by the bishops and
clergy of coloured garments, divided skirts, and superfluous
ornaments ; marriages of religious ; appropriation of tithes
by the laity ; putting benefices into commission , and the
appointment of a particular priest to each benefice with
adequate maintenance ; penance for incendiaries ; the treatment
of Manichean heretics (Fleury,^fj/. Ecc., Bk.LXIX, c. 31.)]

Booh III) Chapter i 69

CHAPTER I

The Tope should aim not at subjecting all men
to himself^ but at bringing them into the
bosom of the Church

i. The end of the previous book suggests the beginning of
this. And so, according to my promise, we must consider the
things that are under you. You cannot think it necessary to
ask me what they are, Eugenius, best of priests ; it were
better perhaps to ask what they are not. If a man wishes to
discover what does belong to your charge, he must go out of
the world. Your progenitors were destined to vanquish the
whole world, not certain portions of it. Go ye into all
the world ! was the command given to them. They indeed
sold their garments and bought swords, fiery eloquence, and
an ardent spirit, weapons powerful in the sight of God.
Whither did not those illustrious conquerors come, those sons
of the mighty ? 2 Whither did they not send their sharp
arrows with hot scorching coals? 3 Indeed their sound went
forth into all the earth and their words to the ends of the
world. 4 Those words of flaming iire which the Lord sent

1 St. Mark xvi. 15.

1 Ps. cxxvii. 4. The Hebrew has sons of the youth , or sons of
one s youth , which the Septuagint translators misunderstanding rendered
filii excuswrurn. The Vulgate perpetuated the blunder. St. Jerome
(Letter to Marcella on the Exf option of the Psalm] I thank the Bishop
of Gloucester for the reference in an interesting discussion of the passage
negatives the view that the apostles could be called exeunt; iiia*much,he
says, as they shook off the dust of their feet they would more fitly be
called excutientts. In ordinary speech, St. Jerome adds, excussi was
regarded as the equivalent of ves^fti, r<ibti^ti, i x/eili i.

\ ?. c.x.x. 4. 4 Ps. xix. 4.

70 On Consideration

into the earth made men s hearts glow in their inmost depths.
Those indefatigable warriors fell on the field of battle, but
they fell unconquered : even in death they triumphed. Their
sovereignty was established beyond measure : l they were
made princes in all lands. 2 You have succeeded to their
inheritance. So you are their heir, and the world is your
inheritance. But the exact nature of your interest and theirs
in this heritage is a matter for sober and careful consideration.
For I do not think you have inherited the world absolutely,
but with certain limitations ; as it seems to me you have
been entrusted with a stewardship over it, not put in possession
of it. If you go on to usurp possession, He withstands you
who says Mine is the world and the fulness thereof . 3
You are not the King of whom the prophet speaks And
all the earth shall be His possession . 4 He means Christ,
who claims possession both by right of creation, and by the
merits of redemption, and by the gift of the Father. For to
whom else has it been said, Ask of me and I will give thee
the Gentiles for thine inheritance, and the utmost bounds of
the earth for thy possession ? 5 Surrender possession and
dominion to Him ; keep for yourself the care thereof. This
is your share : put not forth your hand beyond it.

2. What? you say, You grant me precedence: do
you prohibit sovereignty ? Most certainly. You speak as if
pre-eminence in watchful care were not good pre-eminence. Is
not the farm in the care of the steward, and the child, though
he be master, subject to the tutor ? Nevertheless, the steward
does not own the farm, nor is the tutor master of his master.
I would have you also so take precedence that you may
provide, counsel, administer, serve. Let your precedence be

1 Ps. cxxxix. 17. Vulg. a Ps. xlv. 16.

3 Ps 1. 12. 4 Ps. civ. 24. D Ps. ii. 8.

Booh 111) Chapter i j\

profitable to others ; take precedence like a faithful and wise
servant * whom his Lord hath set over his household \ 3 For
what purpose ? That you may give them food in due season ;
in other words, may manage, not command. Do this ; and
inasmuch as you too are a man, do not aim at lording it over
other men, lest all unrighteousness gain dominion over you. 3
But I have already pressed this upon you more than enough in
discussing who you are. Yet I add this much ; for I dread no
poison for you, no sword more than the lust of dominion. If
you are not greatly deceived, you surely think you have received
no more from the great apostle than I have said ; to claim this
is to take much upon yourself. Recall the words of him who
said k I am a debtor both to the wise and to the foolish . 4
And if your judgement tells you that the admonition is super
fluous, please remember also that the offensive name of
k debtor suits a servant better than a master. The servant
in the Gospel was asked How much owest thou unto my
Lord ? 5 So then, if you acknowledge that you are not
lord over the wise and the foolish, but a debtor to them, you
must be exceedingly careful, and must with unceasing vigilance
consider how those who lack wisdom may become wise, how
the wise may be prevented from turning to folly, how those
who have turned to folly may recover their senses. But no
sort of folly, so to speak, is more foolish than unbelief. So
then you are a debtor also to the unbelieving, both Jews and
Gentiles.

3. We perceive then that you must strive to the utmost
that they who have not faith may be turned to faith, that they
who have turned may not turn aside, that they who have thus

1 Prnesis, ul prosis As you are before the rest, so be for them.

2 St. Matt. xxiv. 45. 3 Ps. cxix. 133.
4 Rom. i. 14. ft Luke xvi. 5.

72- On Consideration

turned may turn back ; moreover, you must see that the
perverse ones be set in the paths of uprightness, and the
subverted recalled to truth ; that the subverters of men s souls
may be convinced by invincible reason, so that they themselves,
if possible, may either be cured of their errors, or, if that may
not be, they may lose their authority, and the power of
subverting other men. You must certainly not allow yourself
to be imposed upon by the worst sort of foolish men, I mean
heretics and schismatics ; for these are they who are subverted,
and subvert ; they are dogs to tear, foxes to deceive. Men,
I say, of this sort must be corrected with special care lest
they perish, or must be restrained that they may not do
damage. As regards the Jews, I grant time may be your
excuse ; they have their fixed limit, which cannot be antici
pated. The fullness of the Gentiles must first come in.
But as regards the Gentiles themselves, what answer do you
make ? Nay rather, what is the verdict of your consideration
on this long delay ? Why did the fathers resolve to set bounds
to the Gospel, and to check the word of faith, while men s
hearts are hardening in unbelief? Why, do we suppose, the
word running very swiftly suddenly stopped ? ] Who was
the first to forbid its life-giving progress ? Some unknown
cause perhaps hindered them ; perhaps necessity compelled
them.

4. Our pretences will not bear examination. Can we with
confidence and a good conscience refrain from even offering
Christ to those who have Him not ? Do we hold back the
truth of God in unrighteousness ? The fullness of the Gen
tiles must certainly come some day. Are we waiting for the
faith to fall from heaven upon them ? Who ever believed by
accident ? How shall they believe without a preacher ? 2
1 Ps. cxlvii. 15. 2 Rom. x. 14.

Booh ///, Chapter i 73

Peter was sent to Cornelius, 1 Philip to the Eunuch ; 2 and if
we seek a more modern instance, Augustine was appointed by
Gregory of blessed memory to deliver the mould of faith to
the English. 3 Look at things from this point of view. A
word more about the obstinacy of the Greeks who are with
us, and yet are not with us ; united by the bond of faith, and
yet not on terms of peace. 4 Though, to speak accurately,
they have in the matter of faith itself halted and wandered
from the right paths. So also respecting heresy, which is
quietly creeping in almost everywhere ; in some cases is openly
raging. For on all sides, and in public too, it is eager to
swallow the Church s little ones/ Do you ask where? Your

1 Acts x. 20. 2 Acts viii. 26. 3 Bright, Early Eng. Ch. Hist., ch. ii.

4 St. Bernard probably refers particularly to the dispute respecting the
Procession of the Holy Ghost, which for nearly a thousand years seemed
to the contending parties to be of such importance as to justify the rent
between East and West . The Council of Constantinople (A. D. 381)
had inserted in the Creed of the Council of Nice (A.D. 325) the words,
"proceeding from the Father " ; and the Council of Ephesus (A.D. 431)
had decreed that no addition should be made to that Creed henceforth.
Accordingly, the Greek fathers uniformly declared their belief in the pro
cession of the Holy Ghost from the Father. The Latin fathers, on the
other hand, having regard to those passages of Scripture which speak of
the Spirit of Christ, and of the Spirit as sent by the Son, continually spoke
of the Holy Ghost as proceeding from the Father and the Son. In spite
of the decree oC the Council of Ephesus the Churches of France and Spain
did add to the Creed of Constantinople the words and the Son . The
contest was renewed at intervals with mutual excommunications, and thus
in the eleventh century arose the schism which has never since been healed.
The reconciliation attempted at the Council of Florence (A.D. 1442) was
only superficial, and was repudiated by the Greeks. Stanley, Eastern
Church; Robertson, Ck. Hut. ; Harold Browne, Thirty-Nine Articles;
Mosheim, Cent. XV, &c.

6 The heresy which St. Bernard has in mind is apparently that of the
Henricians, so called after their founder, Henry, an Italian monk, hermit,
a:id ardent reformer. St. He-nurd s influence proved too great for him

74 On Consideration

own officials who often visit the South know where these
heretics are, and can tell you. They go to and fro in their midst,
or right through them, but what good they have so far done
we have yet to learn. We might perhaps have heard of some
good if the salvation of the people of Spain had not been as
nought in comparison with gold. It is your duty to provide
a remedy for this scourge also.

5. But there is a species of folly which has already nearly
stultified the wisdom of faith itself. It is incredible to what
an extent this venom has infected almost the whole Catholic
Church. For while we are all of us seeking our own therein,
it happens that envying one another, provoking one another,
we are harassed till we hate one another, and are moved to
do wrong ; we arm ourselves for legal strife, quibble and
sophisticate, rush into slanderous accusations, burst into male
dictions, are oppressed by those who are stronger than our
selves, and in our turn oppress those who are weaker. How
worthy and laudable an occupation for the meditation of your
heart to discover some antidote for this deadly sort of folly,
which you contemplate in possession of the very body of
Christ, which is the blessed company of all faithful people !
O ambition ! the cross of the ambitious, how is it that though
you torture all, you please all ? Nothing causes more excru
ciating torment, or more vexing disquietude ; and yet nothing
creates more bustle and stir among mortal men than its affairs.
Is it not true that the thresholds of the apostles are worn

even at Toulouse, where his mission was highly popular. At the Council
of Rheims (A.D. 1148) he was condemned by Eugenius 111 and committed
to prison. There he died not long after. He rejected the baptism of
infants, severely censured the corrupt and licentious manners of the clergy,
treated the festivals and ceremonies of the Church with the utmost con
tempt, and held clandestine assemblies in which he explained and incul
cated the novelties he taught. See Mosheim, Cent. XII.

Book ///, Chapter i 7$

more by the footsteps of ambition than by those of devotion ?
Does not your palace all day long re-echo the tones of its
voice ? Is not the enriching of ambition the object of the
whole toiling practice of the laws and canons ? Is not all
Italy a yawning gulf of insatiable avarice and rapacity for the
spoils it offers ? What is it, or rather what else is it, that,
I will not even say cuts m/o, but cuts off your own spiritual
pursuits ? How often has this restless and disquieting mis
chief caused your holy and faithful leisure to miscarry ! It is
one thing for the oppressed to appeal to you ; it is quite another
for ecclesiastical ambition to make a tool of you by seating
itsdf on the throne. You should not fail the former, nor in
the least give way to the latter. Yet how iniquitously ambi
tion is fostered, while the oppressed are scorned ! Neverthe
less you are a debtor to both, to the oppressed that you may
lift them up, to the ambitious that you may put them down.

CHAPTER II

The limits of appeals to the Apostolic Sec

6. And as we have come upon the question of appeals, it
will not be irrelevant to pursue the subject somewhat farther.
For the conduct of them a deeply religious insight is required,
so that what was intended to meet a great need may not be
rendered useless through abuse. It seems to me that they
may even be productive of much mischief if they are not em
ployed with the utmost moderation. Men appeal to you
from all over the world. It is a proof of your singular
primacy. But if you are wise you will rejoice not in your
primacy, but in its fruitfulness. The apostles were told not
to rejoice in the spirits being subject to them. 1 Men appeal
1 St. Luke x. 20.

7 6 On Consideration

to you, as I have said, and I would the resulting benefit were
equal to the necessity. Would that when the oppressed cries
the oppressor might have reason to know it ! Would that the
wicked in his pride did not consume the poor ! What so
fitting as for the oppressed to call upon your name and find
a refuge, but that the crafty should not escape ? What on
the other hand is so perverse, so unfair, as that the wrong
doer should rejoice, and he who has suffered wrong should be
harassed for nothing ? You sadly lack humanity if you are
not drawn towards a man whose heart is full of grief through
the wrong which has been done him, the toilsome journey,
and the expenses which he has incurred. But there is a no less
sad lack of spirit if you are not roused against him who
is partly the direct, partly the indirect, cause of so many
calamities. Rouse thee, man of God, when these things
happen ; let both your pity and your indignation be stirred.
The one you owe to the injured, the other to him who inflicts
the injury. Let the former be consoled for his losses, by
satisfaction for his wrongs, by putting a stop to the malicious
charges ; let the latter be so handled that he may be sorry for
having done what he was not afraid to do, and may not laugh
at the punishment of the innocent.

7. I think he ought no less to suffer who has appealed
without cause. You have the rule of justice based on the
fixed principles of divine equity, and, unless I am mistaken,
also enjoined by the very law regulating appeals. This pro
vides that an unlawful appeal must not benefit the appellant,
nor prejudice the defendant. Why should a man be harassed
for nothing ? It is perfectly just that he who wished to injure
his neighbour should instead injure himself. To unjustly
appeal is to do injustice ; to unjustly appeal and escape scot-
free only lights the fire of unjust appeals. Now every appeal

Book III, Chapter ii 77

is unjust which is not necessitated by the failure of justice.
An appeal is lawful only when you are wronged ; it is not a
means of wronging some one else. The appeal must be from
a judicial sentence. To anticipate the sentence by an appeal
unless some wrong was clearly going to be done, admits of no
justification. He therefore who appeals when no such wrong
threatens, obviously purposes wrong to another man, or to gain
time. An appeal is not a subterfuge, but a refuge. How
many have we known to appeal after defeat only that while
the appeal was pending they might without let of law indulge
in what is never lawful ! The permission to appeal has in
some cases, we know, left men unmolested for the whole of
their lives in the commission of execrable crimes, incest, for
example, or adultery. How comes this about, that what
ought to be the terror of villains is found protecting villainy ?
How long will you pretend not to notice, or will really not
herd, the murmurs of the whole earth ? How long do you
mean to sleep ? How long will it be before your considera
tion awakes to this gigantic confusing and abusing of appeals ?
They are contrary to laws human and divine, contrary to
custom and established order. There is no distinction of
place, degree, time, cause, or person. These frivolous, and,
in most cases, useless anticipatory appeals come from all sides.
Was not the Court of Appeal wont to be the special terror of
malicious offenders ? At the present time with its assistance
they are themselves a terror, and that to good men. The
antidote is turned to poison. The change is not the work of
the right hand of the Most High.

8. Good men have appeals brought against them by the bad
to prevent their doing good, and in terror at the voice of your
thunder they forbear. Kven bishops are appealed against that
they may not dare to dissolve unlawful marriages, or prohibit

78 On Consideration

them. They are appealed against that they may not presume
to punish in the least degree, or check rapine, theft, sacrilege,
and crime of that description. They are appealed against
that they may be powerless to close the sacred offices against
unworthy or infamous persons, or deprive them when admitted.
What remedy are you seeking to discover for this disease, so
that what was devised as a remedy be not found unto death ?
The Lord was zealous for the house of prayer when it was
made a den of robbers l ; do you, his minister, disguise the
fact that the refuge of the wretched has been made an arsenal
of iniquity ? On all sides you may see the oppressed fore
stalled, and those who are eager to appeal are not the wronged,
but those who wish to do wrong. Here is a mystery. What
is the explanation ? It is for you to consider, not for me to
study the matter. And do you ask why the victims of these
appeals do not come to prove their innocence, and show the
malice of their opponents ? I will tell you what the usual
answer is We don t care to be troubled for nothing. In
the court there are men too ready to favour the appellants and
foster appeals. If we are to give way at Rome, it is better
to give way at home.

9. I confess that I partly believe this. In this vast number
of appeals, which are of daily occurrence, can you show me
an appellant who has even repaid the travelling expenses of the
defendant ? It would be passing strange if all the appellants
were, as this implies, after your investigation, found to be in
the right, and those appealed against in the wrong. Love
righteousness , saith the Scripture, * ye that be judges of the
earth. 2 It is a small thing to keep righteousness, unless you
love it as well. They who keep it do no more ; they who
love it are zealous for it. A lover of righteousness inquires

1 St. Matt. xxi. 13. 2 Wisd. of Sol. i. i.

Book Iff, Chaffer ii 79

for righteousness, and follows after it ; he, moreover, follows
up all unrighteousness. You have nothing in common with
those men who think appeals good sport. I am ashamed to
quote the saying which among the heathen has become a
proverb We have roused two fat stags. To speak more
gently, there is more wit than justice in this. Do you, if you
love righteousness, not encourage appeals, but tolerate them.
Still, it is but little that the Churches of God gain through the
righteousness of a single individual when the prevalent views
are those of men differently disposed. That, however, will
be discussed elsewhere, when we begin to deal with the things
around you.

10. Now do not think it a waste of time to find leisure for
considering how you may restore appeals, if possible, to their
lawful use. If you hereupon inquire, or rather care to know,
what I think, I say that as appeals are not to be despised, so
neither are they to be at all unlawfully used. And I should
find it hard to say which of these, in my opinion, indicates the
greater insolence, were it not that it seems as though the
unlawful use must of necessity induce some measure of
contempt, and for this reason, because it is more injurious, it
ought perhaps to be more vigorously followed up. Is it not
really more injurious, bad in itself, bad in its offspring ? Is it
not this unlawful use which either weakens the authority of
the very law of nature, or nullifies it altogether ? Can a man
receive anything better than the sacraments ? If, however,
they are wrongfully used by the unworthy, or are unworthily
handled, they are by no means received. They bring the
greater damnation, because they are not duly reverenced. I
allow that appeals are a great blessing to the world at large, as
necessary as the sun itself to mortal men. In fact they are
as it were a sun of righteousness, bringing to light and

8o On Consideration

convicting the works of darkness. They are by all means
to be cherished and upheld, but only those which are
demanded of necessity, not those devised by craft and cunning.
All unlawful appeals are of this description ; they do not help
in time of need, they only minister to iniquity. They could
not fail to become contemptible. How many defendants have
in answer to such appeals even abandoned their rights that
they might not be worn out by a long and fruitless journey ?
Yet there have been more who, unable to endure the loss
of their own, have shown but scant respect^ for these
unsuitable appeals and for personages bearing great names.

ii. Let me tell of a case in point. A certain man had
publicly betrothed his future wife. The solemn day of
marriage had arrived. All things were ready; many guests
were invited ; when lo ! a man who coveted his neighbour s
wife all at once announced his intention of appealing, on the
ground that the lady had been first given to him and ought to
belong to him. The bridegroom was thunderstruck ; there
was a dead-lock ; the priest did not dare to proceed ; all the
preparations were thrown away ; everybody went off to eat his
supper at home; the bride was barred from bed and board
until after the return journey from Rome. This befell a
resident in Paris, a noble city of Gaul and the home of
royalty. On another occasion, in the same city, a certain man
became engaged and fixed the day for the wedding. Mean
while a false report got abroad that the parties ought not to be
united. The case was referred to the judgement of the
Church, but without the least expectation of a decision on the
appeal. There was no case, no allegation. The only object
in view was to delay and frustrate the marriage. But the
bridegroom, whether it was that he did not choose to make his
preparations for nothing, or that he would not brook the disap-

Book ///, Chapter ii 81

pointment and be so long kept from the woman he loved, either
treated the appeal with contempt, or feigned ignorance of it, and
went through with what he had purposed. To take a recent
case, what are we to say of the extraordinary presumption of a
certain young man belonging to the church at Auxerre ? The
holy bishop having died, the clergy, according to custom, wished
to elect another; but the young man in question intervened
with an appeal, and forbade anything to be done until after his
return from Rome ; and yet to that very appeal he laid no
information. For when he saw that he was treated with
contempt for appealing unreasonably, he called together such
friends as he could three days after the others had made their
choice, and got himself elected.

12. It is clear from these and countless other instances that
the unlawful use of appeals does not arise from the contempt
for them, but that the contempt of them springs from the
unlawful use. See, therefore, why it is that your zeal and
energy almost constantly vindicate the contempt, and throw
a veil over the unlawful use. Do you wish to more com
pletely bridle contempt ? Take care that the infant growth is
strangled in the very womb of its abandoned mother. And
this will be done if the unlawful use meets with suitable
punishment. Stop the unlawful use, and there will be no
excuse for contempt. Further, when there is no excuse,
audacity will be hissed off the stage. Let there be, then, no
usurer of the privilege, and there will be no despiser, or very
seldom. You do well in refusing to sanction such appeals, or
countenance the trickery, and in leaving much of the business
to those who are familiar with the details, or can quickly be
come so. For the easier investigation is made, and the more
certain its results, the sooner will the decision be given, and
the sounder will it be. What gracious condescension it is in

ST. BERNARD

8 2 On Consideration

you to thus spare so many men enormous trouble and expense !
But you must take particular care in selecting those whom
you trust so much. I might add many useful hints on the same
subject ; but I am mindful of my purpose, and, content with
giving you an opportunity of making the addition, I pass to
other things.

CHAPTER III
Chunk rulers are for the profit of their people

13. And I suppose I must certainly not pass over the first
thing that occurs to me. You are at the head of affairs,
without a rival. Why are you thus placed ? The question, I
tell you, requires consideration. Is it that you may become
great through those beneath you ? By no means, but that you
may make them great. They have chosen you chief, but for
their own sake, not for yours. If it is not so, can you reckon
yourself above the very persons for whose favours you are a
candidate ? Listen to the Lord s words, They who have
authority over them are called benefactors. * That, how
ever, relates to them that are without. What has it to do
with us ? You are falsely so called if you aim not so much
at being a benefactor as at ruling your benefactor. A man
shows a poor spirit when he seeks not the welfare of those
beneath him, but to make his own profit out of them. Such
conduct is specially discreditable in a commander-in-chief.
How beautifully did the Master of the Gentiles express his
opinion that parents ought to lay up for the children, not
children for the parents. 2 He several times says, and it is a
glorious saying, Not that I seek a gift, but fruit. 3 But now

1 St. Luke xxii. 25, 2 2 Cor. xii. 14 3 Phil. iv. 17.

Booh III, Chapter Hi 83

let us pass on, lest some one find my lingering here an
indication of avarice in you ; though how far you are removed
from that vice I testified in a former book. For I know what
tempting offers you have refused, and how deep your poverty
was when you refused them If, then, I write such things to
you, it is not that you require the admonition. Surely what is
written for your profit ought not to profit you only. I am
here censuring avarice, a vice from which your character is
safe enough ; whether the censure is necessary is for you to
decide. I will say, however, not to mention the offerings of
the poor, which you cannot bear to touch, that we have seen
the German money-bags dwindling down ; the bags were not
smaller, but the price paid was less. Silver was counted as
hay. The Sagmarii reluctantly went home with their bundles
as heavy as when they came. A new thing ! Was Rome
ever known to refuse gold ? Even now we do not believe
such practice commends itself to the Romans. Two men
came to Rome, both wealthy, both culprits. One belonged
to Mayence, the other to Cologne. Favour was freely shown
to one ; the other, unworthy, I suppose, of any favour, was
told, * The same robe you wore when you came in you will
wear when you go out. What a glorious saying ! The
very words of apostolic freedom. Was it one whit inferior
to Peter s, Thy money perish with thee ? ! The only
difference is that the latter has more zeal, the former more
modesty. What did the man get by coming from over sea,
almost from the ends of the earth, crossing sea and land to
purchase a bishopric twice over, once with his own money,
once with other men s ? For he had already bought it once.
He brought much with him, but he took it back ; not all,
however. The poor wretch fell into other hands than yours,
1 Acts viii. jo.
F 2

84 On Consideration

more mighty to receive than to give. You did well to keep your
hands clean both ways ; you would not lay them on the head
of an ambitious man, nor lay them under the unrighteous
mammon. You did not thus hold aloof from a poor bishop,
whom I could name, but you gave him something to give, so
that he mighty not be called stingy ; he secretly received from
you what he openly gave. You thus with your own purse
shielded the man from exposure ; and at the same time by
humouring the court, he (thanks to your kindness) escaped
the dislike of those who love gifts. You cannot hide the deed ;
we know both the facts and the person. Does the story
displease you ? The more averse you are to hearing it, the
greater pleasure I have in telling it. If it is good for you one
way, it is good for me another. Where the glory of Christ
is concerned I am under no such obligation to silence, as you
are to refrain from seeking your own glory. And if you go
on complaining, I will answer you out of the Gospel, The
more he charged them, so much the more a great deal they
published it, saying, he hath done all things well. }

CHAPTER IV

Ecclesiastical rank and dignity to be respected.
The abuse of privileges and exemptions.

i 4. There is something else if it be something else, for
it might perhaps be said to be part of the same subject and
let your consideration give good heed to it. He does not appear
to be far from the truth who thought that what I am about to
speak of should be classed as a variety of avarice. For my-

1 St. Mark vii. 36.

Booh III, Chapter iv 85-

self, I would not deny either that it is a kind of avarice, or
that it looks like avarice. At all events if you aim at per
fection you should shun not only things bad in themselves, but
things that have the appearance of evil. In the one case you
have regard to your conscience, in the other to your reputa
tion. A particular line of conduct under different circum
stances may be lawful ; nevertheless, if it does not look well,
deem it unlawful. In a word, ask your ancestors, and they
will answer, Abstain from every appearance of evil. l Let
the Lord s servant by all means imitate his Lord, for He
Himself says, If any man serve me, let him follow me/ 2
And concerning Him you know it is said, The Lord hath
reigned, he hath put on beauteous apparel, he hath clothed
himself with strength. 3 Be you also strong in faith, beau
teous in glory, and you have shown yourself an imitator of
God. Your strength is the confidence of a faithful conscience,
your beauty is the splendour of a good character. So then,
I beseech you. be clothed with strength, for your strength is
the joy of the Lord. Moreover, He delights in your fair
beauty no less, as it were, than in His own likeness. Put on
your glorious vestments ; be clothed with the two robes
wherewith the virtuous 4 woman was wont to clothe her house
hold. Let there not be in your conscience a trace of a weak
and feeble faith : let there not be in your reputation the
blemish of a bad appearance. You will then wear the two
robes, and the Bridegroom will rejoice over your soul which
He has betrothed to Himself; your God will joy over you.
Are you wondering what my drift is, and do you not yet per
ceive my meaning ? I will not keep you in suspense any
longer. I refer to the murmuring and complaining of the

1 i Thess. v. 22. 2 St. John xii. 26. P. xciii. I.

4 Vulg. /or/is. Prov. xxxi. 10.

8(5 On Consideration

Churches. They cry aloud that they are being mutilated and
dismembered. There are none, or very few, which are not
either already smarting under the scourge, or dreading its
approach. Do you ask how that is ? Abbots are exempted
from their bishops, bishops from archbishops, archbishops
from patriarchs or primates. Does this look well ? I should
be surprised if any justification could be found for such doings.
The constant practice shows that you have authority, but
possibly not so keen a sense of justice. You do this because
you have the power, but whether you have the right is open
to question. You are where you are that you may uphold the
gradations of honour and dignity, secure to every one his
proper rank, and not grudge any one his due ; as one of your
predecessors says. Honour to whom honour. 1

15. The spiritual man of whom we read, who judges all
things that he may be judged by no man, 2 will preface all his
work with a sort of threefold consideration. First, he will
ask whether the thing is lawful ; then, is it becoming ;
lastly, whether it is also expedient. For although Christian
philosophy undoubtedly inculcates that nothing is becoming
unless it be lawful, and nothing expedient unless it be both
becoming and lawful, it will not of necessity follow that
everything lawful is either becoming or expedient. Well
then, let us, if we can, apply these three tests to the business
before us. Must it not be unbecoming in you to make your
will the law ? And, because there is no appeal against you,
to resort to force while you ignore reason ? Are you greater
than your Lord, who says, 1 came not to do mine own
will ? 3 Whatever may be argued to the contrary, I main
tain that it is a mark of baseness, no less than of pride, for a
man, as though he had not the gift of reason, to make his

1 Rom. xiii. 7. 2 I Cor. ii. 15. 3 St. John vi. 38.

Booh ///, Chapter iv 87

pleasure, and not reason, the rule of action ; to be swayed not
by judgement but by appetite. Is anything more characteristic
of the beasts ? And if it is unworthy of a reasonable being
to live the life of cattle, who can endure that you, the supreme
ruler, should so outrage nature and insult your rank ? If you
do so degenerate, which God forbid ! you will share in the
general reproach, Man being in honour did not understand ;
he is compared to the foolish beasts of burden, and is made
like unto them. l How very unworthy it is of you, when you
possess all, not to be content with all, but you must needs
make a strange to-do over the minute and inappreciable trifles
of the universal dominion entrusted to you, as if they were not
yours already ! And here I should like you to remember
Nathan s parable of the man who, having a hundred sheep,
coveted the one belonging to the poor man. 2 Let us also
recall the deed, or rather the crime, of Ahab, who was master
of all, and yet was eager to get a single vineyard. 3 God grant
you may never have it said to you as it was to him, Thou
hast slain and taken possession. 4

1 6. And please do not make the profit from these exemp
tions a pretext for them. There is no profit, unless it be that
the bishops are thereby more insolent, the monks even more
dissolute. How is it that they are also poorer ? If you
examine the balance sheet of these freedmen with anything
like care, and look into their lives, no matter where, you will
find the monks shamefully poor, and the bishops disgracefully
worldly. These are the twin offspring of a baneful freedom.
What is there to prevent the loose and disorderly rabble from
boldly sinning, when there is no one to rebuke it ? What
can we exj>ect but the impudent plundering and pillaging of

1 Ps. xlix. 12. 2 2 Sam. xii. i. 3 I Kings xxi. 2.

* i Kings xxi. 19.

88 On Consideration

defenceless religion, when there is no one to defend it ? For
where can men find a refuge ? Shall they go to the bishops
complaining of injustice ? The bishops must have a merry
twinkle in their eyes whether they look at the wrongs done, or
the wrongs suffered. What profit is there in that blood ?
The only gain, I fear, is that which God threatened in the
prophet, He shall die in his iniquity, but his blood will I
require at your hand. l For 2 if a man is not only exempted but
puffed up, and he from whose jurisdiction he is exempted is
inflamed with anger, how can the exemptor be innocent ?
I have said too little ; we are smothering the fire ; let me
speak more plainly. If he who complains is spiritually dead,
how can he be alive who is the cause of his complaining ?
Must he not, therefore, be guilty of the death of both these
persons, and give sentence of death against his own soul as
well, for it was he who supplied the sword which caused the
death of both ? This is what I meant when I said, Thou
hast slain and taken possession/ 3 And further, people who
hear of these things are scandalized ; they are indignant, dis
parage, and blaspheme, that is to say, they are wounded even
unto death. The tree is not good that bears such fruit as
acts of arrogance, the breaking up of houses, rivalries, the
squandering of resources, so many scandals, so much hatred ;
and, what is more lamentable, bitter enmities and perpetuul
discord between the churches. You see how true are the
words, All things are lawful to me, but all things are not
expedient. 4 But suppose the thing is not even lawful.
Pardon me ; 1 shall not readily allow that the source of so
much lawlessness can be lawful.

1 7. Would you, in fact, deem it lawful to cut off the limbs

1 Ezek. xxxiii. 8. 2 The text here is in great confusion.

3 See p. 87. i Cor. x. 22.

Booh III, Chapter re 89

of churches, turn order into confusion, and remove the land
marks which your fathers placed ? Well then, it is the work
of justice to secure to everybody what belongs to him; how
can it be consistent with justice to rob any man of what
belongs to him ? You err if you reckon that your apostolic
power is not only supreme, but the only power ordained of
God. If this is your opinion, you differ from the apostle.
He says, " There is no power except from God. * So then,
if that which follows, He that resists the power withstandeth
the ordinance of God, a even if this mainly makes for you, it
does not apply to you exclusively. In short, the same writer
says, Let every soul be subject to the higher powers. 3 He
does not say * to the higher power , as if all power belonged
to one man, but to the higher powers , since it resides in
many. Your power, therefore, is not the only power from
the Lord ; there are middle and lower powers. And as
those whom God hath conjoined are not to be put asunder, 4
so those whom God hath subjoined are not to be put on
a footing of equality. If you cut off a finger, attach it to
your head, and let it hang side by side with your arm, as a
hand for the upper parts of the body, you create a monstrosity.
Something like this happens if you place the members in the
body of Christ otherwise than He Himself arranged them.
Unless you suppose it was not He, but another, who set
some in the church, first apostles, secondly prophets, thirdly
evangelists, then teachers and pastors, for the perfecting of the
saints, for the work of the ministry, for the edifying of the
body of Christ V And yet it is this body which Paul sets
before you with his own true apostolic eloquence, most admir
ably uniting it to the Head, and representing it as k from Him

1 Rom. xiii. r. 2 Rom. xiii. 2. s Rom. xiii. T.

St. Matt. xix. 6. 5 I Cor. xii. 28.

90 On Consideration

fitly framed and knit together through that which every joint
supplieth, according to the working in due measure of each
several part, making the increase of the body unto the building
up of itself in love V And do not despise the mould on
which you are to fashion yourself because it is the Church on
earth ; the pattern is derived from heaven. For not even
the Son can do anything except what He hath seen the
Father do, 2 as is obvious from what was said to Him under
the name of Moses, See thou make everything after the
pattern which was showed thee on the mount. 3

1 8. He understood this who said, I saw the holy city,
New Jerusalem descending from heaven, prepared by God. 4
I suppose a parallel was intended, viz. that as in heaven above
Seraphim and Cherubim, and all other celestial beings, even
to angels and archangels, are of varying rank under one Head,
viz. God ; so in the Church on earth, also, primates or patri
archs, archbishops, bishops, presbyters, or abbots, and all
others, are similarly ranked under one supreme pontiff. That
which has God for its author, and originates in heaven, must
not be lightly esteemed. But if a bishop say I do not desire
to be under an archbishop , or an abbot I do not care to
obey a bishop , this is not from heaven. Unless, perhaps,
you have heard one of the angels crying I do not desire to
be under the archangels , or one of the lower angelic orders
declare that he could not bear to be subject to any one but
God. What ! you say, do you forbid me to exercise my
stewardship ? What I wish to prevent is the squandering of
the estate. T am not so ignorant as not to know that you
have been made stewards ; but if so, it is for building up, not
for casting down. 5 In a word, it is required among stewards

1 Eph. iv. 16. 2 St. John v. 19. 3 Exod. xxv. 40.

4 Apoc. xxi. 2. 5 2 Cor. xiii. 10.

Booh III, Chapter iv 9 i

that a man be found faithful. 1 When necessity requires you
may be excused for exercising your dispensing power; if
there is some manifest advantage, such exercise may deserve
commendation. k Advantage , I say, of the community, not
your own. For when no good is done either to the commu
nity or to yourself, we certainly have not a faithful steward
ship, but a cruel waste. Still, as everybody knows, there are
some monasteries in different dioceses, which from their very
foundation have been more closely associated with the apos
tolic see in accordance with the will of the founders. But
the free gift of devotion is one thing ; the efforts of ambition
intolerant of subjection are quite another. So much for this.

CHAPTER V

The Sovereign Pontiff should uphold the Apostolic
decrees and ancient ordinances throughout the
world

19. It remains for your consideration to survey the condi
tion of the Church generally, and to ascertain whether the
people are subject to the clerks, 2 the clerks to the priests, 3 the
prints to God, in all due humility ; if in monasteries and
places of religion order is preserved, and discipline is watchful ;
if ecclesiastical censures are enforced against corrupt practice
and perverse doctrine ; if the vineyards show the goodly

1 i Cor. iv. a.

2 See Bingham, Ant. of the Christian Church, vol. i. p. 47. Inferior
orders, below presbyters and deacons.

:! The fncerdotinm in tecundo et tertio online, i. e. presbyters and
deacons.

92 On Consideration

bloom of priestly integrity and holiness ; if the blossoms bear
fruit in the obedience of faithful peoples ; if, now at length,
your own apostolic commands and ordinances are observed
with fitting care, lest any portion of your Master s field be found
uncultivated through neglect, or filched through fraud. You
may be sure that such defects may be found. To omit count
less other details, I could easily point to parts of the vineyards
on all sides which are lying waste ; I could show you that
even of those which your own right hand has planted some
are rooted up. At Rheims was it not your own mouth that
published the canons submitted to the Council ? * Who
observes them ? Who has observed them ? You are de
ceived if you think they are observed. If you do not think
so, you have yourself erred, either in decreeing what was not
to be observed, or pretending that it is observed. We
enjoin , you said, that bishops as well as clergy see that they
do not, either by superfluous apparel, or an unbecoming medley
of colours, or by divided garments, or by the tonsure, offend
the eye of the beholders, to whom they ought to be a pattern
and example ; but rather by their own conduct so condemn
these things, and by their mode of life evidence their love of
innocence, as the dignity of the clerical order requires. But
if after warning from their own bishops any do not submit
within forty days, let them by authority of the same be de
prived of their ecclesiastical benefices. If, however, the
bishops neglect to enforce the aforesaid penalty, inasmuch as
the faults of inferiors are to be attributed to none more than
to indolent and negligent rulers, let them abstain from their
pontifical office until such time as they do inflict the punish
ment appointed by us on the clergy subject to them. With
this we have thought well to couple the order that no one be

1 See introduction to this book.

Book III, Chapter v 93

ordained archdeacon or dean, unless he be deacon and priest.
Morever, if archdeacons, deans, and priors, below the afore
named orders, contemptuously refuse to be ordained, let them
be deprived of the honour they have taken upon themselves.
We further forbid the bestowal of the aforesaid honours on
youths not even as yet admitted to holy orders, but distin
guished for their capacity and meritorious lives.

20. These are your words; you authorized them. What
effect was given to them ? To this day youths, although not
admitted to holy orders, are promoted in the Church. As
regards the first canon, luxurious dress was forbidden, but it
is not checked ; the punishment was declared, but it has by
no means followed the offence. It is now the fourth year
since we heard the command given, and we have not as yet
lamented a single cleric deprived of his benefice, or a single
bishop suspended from his office. But the sequel is intensely
sad. What is the sequel ? Impunity, the child of careless
ness, the mother of insolence, the root of impudence, the
nurse of transgressions. And blessed will you be if you make
it your earnest care to guard against carelessness, the first
parent of all evils. But you will do your best in this respect.
Now lift up your eyes and see if the spotted fur does not dis
grace the clergy just as much as ever ; if the immoderate
division in the robe does not as much as ever almost show
their nakedness. Does God care what a man wears ?
Does He not rather regard his character ? * This is how
men talk. But the clothing I refer to indicates deformity of
mind and morals. How is it that the clergy wish to be one
thing and seem another ? The truth is that they are not so
innocent and upright as they ought to be. Forsooth, in dress
they are soldiers, in profession clergy, in conduct neither.
For they neither light like soldiers, nor preach the Gospel

94 On Consideration

like clergymen. 1 To which order do they belong ? In their
eagerness to belong to both, they forsake both, confound
both. Every one , says the Apostle, shall rise in his own
order. 2 What is their order ? Having sinned without
order, shall they perish without order ? I rather think that
if the all-wise God is truly believed to leave nothing unordered,
from the height above to the depth beneath, there is reason to
fear their order can be only where there is no order , but
where everlasting horror dwells. O unhappy bride entrusted
to the care of bridesmen such as these, who are not afraid to
appropriate to themselves what was intended for her adorning !
They are surely not the friends of the bridegroom, but his
rivals. And now I have said enough about the things beneath
you ; not enough, it is true, for the adequate treatment of the
subject, which is far too great for me to handle, but enough
for my purpose. We must now view the things around you ;
but the fourth book will open the door and admit us to them.

1 St. Bernard (Cotter Morison, p. 1 29) elsewhere girds at the cross
between the priest and the soldier. Not only have we lost the spirit of the
old monasteries, but even the outward appearance. For this habit of ours,
which of old was the sign of humility, by the monks of our day is turned
into a source of pride. We can hardly find in a whole province where
withal we condescend to be clothed. The monk and the knight cut
their garments, the one his cowl, the other his cloak, from the same piece.
As early as the beginning of the sixth century there are canons forbidding
the clergy to wear a military cloak, or bear arms.

3 i Cor. xv. 23.

BOOK IV

[ In the fourth book St. Bernard proposes for the Pope s
consideration what is around him, viz. (a) the Clergy, (b] the
people of Rome, (c) the Cardinals, and other officers of the
Court, and concludes by drawing a remarkable portrait of an
ideal Head of the Church.

The People of Rome. i The root of mischief was deep and
perennial ; and a momentary calm was preceded and followed
by such tempests as had almost sunk the bark of St. Peter.
Rome continually presented the aspect of war and discord ;
the churches and palaces were fortified and assaulted by the
factions and families ; and, after giving peace to Europe,
Calixtus the Second alone had resolution and power to pro
hibit the use of private arms in the metropolis/ Gibbon
(Decline and Fall, ch. Ixix. A.D. 1118-1224), who, after
quoting St. Bernard, adds, Surely this dark portrait is not
coloured by the pencil of Christian charity ; yet the features,
however harsh and ugly, express a lively resemblance of the
Romans of the twelfth century.

Legates. * In addition to their vicars, the popes appointed
legates to exercise some of their functions, such as that of
holding councils for the investigation of cases which had been
referred to Rome, or in which the popes took it on themselves
to interfere. These legates were sometimes ecclesiastics
sent from Italy; but as foreign ecclesiastics were regarded
with suspicion by princes, it was more usual to give the
legatine commission to some bishop of the country in which
the inquiry was to take place. Even kings were sometimes
invested with the authority of papal legates/ Gregory VII
(circ. A.D. 1070) applied to his legates the text, he that
heareth you, heareth me. Wherever they apjvared they were
the highest ecclesiastical authorities ; and bishops trembled
before the deacons and subdeacons who were imested with

9 6 On Consideration

the pope s commission to control, to judge, and to depose
them. Up to the time of Anselm (circ. A. D. 1 100) they had
come but seldom to England and only on special business.
When a legate of All England was appointed it was stoutly
contended that no one but the Archbishop of Canterbury
could be recognized as a representative of the pope. Robert
son, Ch. Hist., &c. ; Cotter Morison, Saint Bernard, p. 423.
Election of Pope. The great innovation in the method of
election dates from A. D. 1059, when Nicolas II, in a
Council held at Rome, published a decree that the cardinal
bishops should first treat of the election, that they should then
call in the cardinals of inferior rank, and that afterwards the
rest of the clergy and people should approve the choice.
The choice of pope was thus substantially vested in the car
dinals. The election was to be made saving the due honour
and reverence of our beloved son Henry, who at present is
accounted king, and hereafter will, it is hoped, if God permit,
be emperor, as we have already granted to him ; and of his
successors who shall personally have obtained this privilege from
the apostolic see. There was no emperor at the time, and
* our beloved son Henry was a child under female guardian
ship. Nicolas, it will be seen, so short a time before
St. Bernard s day, assumed the right to dispose of temporal
sovereignties. His successor did so also when he sanctioned
William the Conqueror s invasion of England. See Robertson,
Book III, &c.]

CHAPTER I

The things around the Pope

i. If I knew better, most loving Eugenius, how you
received what I have already sent, I should proceed to the
rest of my work with corresponding confidence or caution ;
or I might, of course, stop altogether. But since the distance
which separates us renders such knowledge impossible, you

Book //^ Chapter i 97

must not be surprised if, as I approach (with some misgiving,
I confess) the middle of my subject, my discourse flows less
freely in its divided channel. Having fully treated the first
part of consideration in the former books, I now take in hand
the task of adding my views on the things around you. They,
too, are really under you, but the nearer they are the greater
is their importunity. For being before your very eyes they
allow no pretence of carelessness or forgetful ness. They
more furiously drive you ; they more tumultuously mob you ;
there is reason to fear they may carry you away altogether.
I do not doubt that you have learnt from your own experience
what watchful and earnest consideration is required when
things are so. Moreover, if careful and timely consideration
does not step in, your vexation will be boundless, and your
anxiety unceasing. You will not have a moment to spare,
nor a free place in your heart ; the labour will be greater, the
profit less. 1 have in mind those things which come upon
you daily from the city, from the court, from your own
church. These things, I say, are around you ; your clergy
and your people, whose own bishop you are, and to whom you
therefore owe a debt of special care. So are they, too, who
day by day assist you, the elders of the people, the judges of
the world ; they, too, who belong to your household and sit at
your table, your chaplains, gentlemen of the bedchamber, and
inferior clergy appointed in their different offices to do you
service. These are your more intimate acquaintance ; they
more frequently knock, disturb, and vex you. 1 These arc
they who are not afraid to wake the beloved before she wishes
to be awaked.

1 Cant. v. 2, 3.

hi. BLRNARU

9 8 On Consideration

CHAPTER II

The clergy and people of Rome. The care and
watchfulness of shepherds in olden time

2. Now, in the first place, your clergy, who set the pattern
for the clergy throughout the Church, ought to be in the best
of order. Secondly, whatever is amiss in your presence re
flects the more discredit upon you. It concerns the glory of
your Holiness that the men you have before your eyes be so
ordered, so fashioned, that they may be the mirror and the
very pink of a virtuous and well-regulated life. Above all
other men they should be found ready for their duties, fit for
the sacraments, eager to instruct the people, circumspect in
keeping themselves free from all pollution. What am I to
say about the people ? It is the people of Rome. I could
not more briefly, or more definitely, describe them. Yet
I ought to let you know what I think of your parishioners.
Is there anything in history more notorious than the wanton
ness and pride of the Romans ? A race unaccustomed to
peace, familiar with tumult ; a race to this very day fierce and
intractable ; who will never submit except when they have no
power to resist. Here is the mischief; this is the care that
lies heavy upon you, and you must not disguise the fact. You
perhaps smile as you read this, for you are convinced that
they will never be cured. Do not despair : what is required
of you is the care, not the cure. You have surely heard the
words, * Take care of him ; our Lord did not say cure or
4 heal him. It was a true saying, The doctor cannot always
cure his patient/ But set a better ideal before you in your
work. Paul says, * I laboured more than they all/ * He
1 i Cor. xv. 10.

Booh IV, Chapter ii 99

does not say, < I did more good than all, or I bore more fruit
than all/ for he most scrupulously avoided any word of pride.
The man whom God taught that every one shall receive
according to his work, not according to the results of the
work, 1 knew better than that. Hence it was that he thought
he ought to glory more in labours than in successes, as you
have him saying elsewhere, In labours more abundant. a
So, pray, do your own work ; for God will take good care
of His without your solicitude and anxiety. Plant, water,
bestow care : you have done your part. God, when He so
wills, will certainly give the increase; it will not be you. If
perchance He does not will to give it, you lose nothing, for
the scripture says, God will render to the righteous the
reward of their labours. 3 That labour is safe which no
failure can render void. And I would say this without
prejudice to the divine power and goodness. I know the
heart of this people is hardened ; but God is able of these
stones to raise up children unto Abraham. Who knows if
He will return and pardon, convert and heal them ? But I do
not propose to dictate to God what He ought to do ; would
that I could persuade you to do what you ought, and as you
ought.

3. I know I am treading on dangerous ground, and have to
deal with some very nice points. How shall I approach the
perilous task of saying what I think ? I see clearly what is
hanging over my head. The cry of innovation will be
raised ; for no one can deny the justice of my complaint.
But I would not allow even the plea of novelty. For I am
quite sure that what I urge was once the custom, and, like all
other customs, it might fall into disuse ; but nothing can dis
turb the fact that the custom once prevailed. Can any one

1 i Cor. iii. 8. 2 a Cor. xi. 23. 3 Wisd. of Sol. x. 17.

G 2

ioo On Consideration

with truth deny that to be a custom which was not only done
once upon a time, but beyond a doubt was the practice for
a considerable time ? I will tell you what I refer to, though
it will do no good. Why ? Because it will not please the
rulers l of the Church, who have more regard for the splendour
of their office than for the claims of truth. Before your day
there were men who would devote themselves entirely to
feeding the sheep ; they gloried in the shepherd s work and
name ; they counted nothing humiliating except what they
thought hindered the welfare of the sheep, for they did not
seek their own interests, but spent upon the sheep. They
spent care, they spent their substance, they spent even them
selves. Wherefore one of them says, I will be spent out for
your souls. 2 It is as though they said, We came not to be
ministered unto, but to minister ; 3 and so, as often as it
became them, they made the Gospel free of cost. The only
gain they sought from those in their keeping, the only pomp,
the only pleasure, was, if possible, to make them a perfect
people for the Lord. That was their constant concern, even
in much sorrow of heart, and pain of body, in labour and care,
in hunger and thirst, in cold and nakedness.

4. Let me now ask what has become of this practice?
A very different one has crept in : men s ambitions have
undergone a great change, and I would that the change were not
for the worse ! We have still among us, I admit, anxious
care, wholesome emulation, and a sense of responsibility.
These have been passed on to you without diminution. In
support of what I say, there is the fact that you do not spare
your substance any more than your predecessors did. But it
is the change in the investment that makes the difference. It

1 Salrapis. But see Judges iii. 3 ; 2 Chron. ix. 14, Vulg.
2 . a Cor. xii. 15. 3 St. Matt. xx. 28.

Book // , Chapter ii 101

is a great abuse. Few look to the mouth of the lawgiver :
all have regard to his hands. And not without good reason.
The hands do all the Pope s business. Show me a man in
the whole city of Rome who welcomed you as Pope without
having his price, or hoping to get it. Even when they profess
to be your very humble servants, they aim at being your
masters. They pledge their fidelity only that they may more
conveniently injure the confiding. Hence it is that there can
be no deliberation from which they think they ought to be
excluded; there will be no secret into which they do not
worm their way. If the doorkeeper keeps one of them
waiting a minute or two, I should not like to be in his shoes.
Now for a few illustrations, so that you may know whether
I understand this people s ways, and how far. First of all,
they are wise to do evil, but they know not how to do good.
Hateful to heaven and earth, they have laid hands on both ;
they are impious towards God, heedless in holy things ;
turbulent among themselves, jealous of their neighbours, bar
barous to foreigners, they love no man and are loved of none ;
and when they aim at being feared by all, all must fear.
These are they who cannot bear to be beneath, though they
are not qualified to be at the head, faithless to superiors,
insufferable to inferiors. They have no modesty in asking,
and no shame in refusing. They worry you to get what they
want ; they cannot rest till they get it ; they have no gratitude
once they have got it. They have taught their tongue to
speak great things, when there is but little doing. They are
lavish promisors, niggardly performers ; the smoothest of
flatterers, and the worst of backbiters ; artless dissemblers,
and malignant traitors. I allow myself to digress thus far
because I think you ought to be fully and precisely admonished
of these things which arc around you.

102

On Consideration

5. Let us now return to our subject. How is it that
churches are robbed to provide the purchase-money of the
flatterers who cry Well done ! Well done ! ? The susten
ance of the poor is scattered broadcast in the streets of the
rich. The money glitters in the mud ; men rush from all
sides to get it ; the poor man does not pick it up, but the
stronger, or, it may be, the swiftest runner. Still, I must in
fairness say this custom, or rather this deadly disease, did not
begin with you ; would that it might end with you. But let
us proceed. Amid these surroundings you, the shepherd,
parade in cloth of gold, with every luxury at your command.
The sheep, what do they receive ? If I might speak the
truth, these are the pastures of demons rather than of sheep.
Did Peter, forsooth, do such things, or Paul thus sport him
self ? You see that the one object of the Church s zeal is
the preservation of your dignity. Honour claims all, holiness
nothing, or but little. If for good reason you attempt to
waive ceremony, and show a little friendliness, No, say
they : it is not becoming : * it does not suit the time : it
is not accordant with your rank : bear in mind the impor
tant part you play. The last thing mentioned is the will of
God ; there is no hesitation because men s salvation is at
stake ; let us call nothing salutary but what is high and
mighty ; and whatever gives the scent of glory, let that be
righteousness. Thus all humility is reckoned a disgrace
among the inmates of the palace, so that you may more easily
find a man who really is humble than you will one who is
willing to appear so. The fear of the Lord is counted sim
plicity, not to say folly. They revile a prudent man, who is
on good terms with his own conscience, as a hypocrite.
A lover of quiet, moreover, who sometimes finds leisure to
think about himself, they call a useless drone.

Book IV, Chapter Hi 103

CHAPTER III

The necessity of curtailing extravagance in
dress, &c.

6. How is it then with you ? Are you not yet awake, and
on your guard against those who have surrounded you with
the snares of death ? Pray bear with me yet a little while.
Nay, rather, pardon me when I say these things with less
temerity than timidity. 1 am jealous over you with a godly
jealousy, and I would it were as profitable as it is strong.
I know where you dwell ; unbelievers and subverters are with
you. They are wolves, not sheep ; but you are the shepherd
of these as well as of the rest. The consideration will be
profitable if it leads you to the discovery of some means of
converting them lest they subvert you. They were sheep and
turned into wolves ; why despair of their turning back again
into sheep ? Here, here, I do not spare you, so that God
may spare you. At least cither deny that you are shepherd
over this people, or showjthat you are. You will not deny it,
lest he, whose chair you fill, deny that you are his heir.
I mean, of course, Peter, who never, so far as can be ascer
tained, i araded himself decked with gems, or robed in silks ;
he was not covered with gold, he did not ride on a white
steed, he was not surrounded by soldiers, nor fenced off from
his flock by noisy attendants. He thought that without all
this he could amply fulfil the salutary command, If you love
me, feed my sheep. * In all this painted pomp you are not
Peter s successor, but Constantinc s. What I insist on is
that while you may tolerate such pomp and glory to suit the

1 St. John xxi. 15.

io4 0> 1 Consideration

time, you must not claim it as a debt due to you. I rather
urge you to consider those things which are a debt due from
you. If on state occasions you are robed in purple and
decked with gold, I am sure this does not mean that you, the
shepherd s heir, shrink from the shepherd s toil, or the
shepherd s care ; it does not imply that you are ashamed of
the Gospel. Albeit, if you willingly preach the Gospel, you,
too, have a glorious place among the apostles. To preach
the Gospel is to feed the sheep. Do the work of an evan
gelist, and you have done the work of a shepherd.

7. You are advising me , you say, to feed dragons and
scorpions, not sheep. For that very reason, I reply, set
about them ; but with the word, not with the sword. Why
should you again try to use the sword, which you were once
for all bidden to put into its sheath ? Yet if any one should
deny that you have the sword, he does not seem to me to have
paid sufficient attention to his Lord s words, * Put back thy
sword into the sheath. 1 To you, then, the sword belongs,
and it should be unsheathed, it may be with your consent,
though not by your hand. Otherwise, if it no way belonged
to you, when the apostles said, Lo, here are two swords, 2
the Lord would not have replied, * It is enough ; He would
have said, They are too many. Both swords belong to the
Church, the spiritual and the material ; the one is to be used
to defend the Church, but the other must even be banished
from the Church ; the one is wielded by the priest, the other
by the soldier, but of course with your consent, and at the
command of the Emperor. More of this elsewhere. Now,
however, seize the sword which was entrusted to you that you
might strike ; wound, for the saving of their souls, if not all,
if not many even, at all events as many as you can.
1 St. John xviii. 10, n. z St. Luke xxii. 38. See Appendix, p. 171.

Booh y/ 7 , Chapter in

8. You say, I am not better than my fathers. I will not
ask to which of your fathers this exasperating house ever
hearkened, which of them it did not mock. Therefore do
you the more firmly take your stand if haply they may hear,
and be still ; insist even when they resist. When I speak
thus, I shall, perhaps, be said to use extravagant language.
Was it I who said, Be instant in season, out of season ? l
Call the apostle extravagant if you dare. The prophet is
commanded to cry aloud and cease not . 2 To whom was
he to cry unless it was to the wicked and to sinners ?
* Declare unto my people their wickedness, and to the house
of Jacob their sins. 3 Carefully observe that the same people
are called k wicked , and the people of the Lord . Take
the same view of those with whom you have to do. Although
they are wicked, although they are unrighteous, see that you
are not told, Inasmuch as ye did it not to one of the least
of my brethren, ye did it not to me. 4 I admit that this
people has ever been of a hard forehead and of a wild heart ;
but I fail to see how you can know that their heart cannot be
tamed. What has never been may yet be. You may despair,
but with God no word shall be impossible." If they are of a
hard forehead, do you also harden yours. Nothing is so hard
that it does not yield to that which is harder. The Lord
said to the prophet, I have made thy forehead harder than
their foreheads. If you have so dealt with that people that
you can say, My people, what ought I to have done for thee
that I have not done/ this is your only sound defence. If
you have thus done, and yet have done no good, there is still
something that you can do, something that you can say. Go

1 a Tim. iv. 2. 2 Iu. Iviii. i.

3 Isa. Iviii. I. < St. Matt. x\v. 45.

St. Luke i. 37. Ezk. iii. 8.

106 On Consideration

forth from Ur of the Chaldees, 1 and say, I must preach the
Gospel also to other cities. 2 I think you will not regret
your exile if you exchange Rome for the world.

CHAPTER IV

The Pope s colleagues and coadjutors at the
Later an

9. Let us come to your colleagues s and coadjutors at the
Lateran. They are busy on your behalf: they are the inner
circle of your friends. It follows that if they are good, you
more than any one else reap the benefit ; if they are bad, you
more than any one else bear the loss. Do not say you are
well if you have a pain in your side ; what I mean is, do not
say you are good if you rely on bad men. To put it differ
ently, suppose you are good, what fruit (as I remember saying
in a former book) can your goodness, the goodness of an indi
vidual man, bear ? What profit does your individual righteous
ness bring to the churches of God, when the prevalent

1 Gen. xi. 31 ; xv. 7. 2 St. Luke iv. 43.

3 St. Bernard s word is collaterales. In the eleventh century the seven
cardinal bishops had been appointed to the Church of St. John Lateran
to officiate in turn for the Pope. This basilica, inscribed on each side of
the entrance, The Mother and Mistress of all Churches of the city and
world/ stands on the site of the house of Plautius Lateranus, who was put
to death by Nero (see Tacitus, Annals, xi. 30, 36 ; xiii. II ; xv. 49, 60),
and is named after him. It was founded by Constantine, who assisted
with his own hands in digging the foundations. The Chapter of the
Lateran still takes precedence of that of St. Peter s ; the ceremony of
taking possession of the Lateran Basilica is one of the first observed on the
election of a new Pope, whose coronation takes place in it, so that for 1,50x3
years it has preserved its rank and privileges. St. Bernard, as his manner
is, appears to be playing with the word.

Booh 7/ 7 , Chapter iv 107

views are those of men otherwise disposed ? The truth is
that not even your own goodness beset by bad men is safer
than bodily health would be with a serpent hard by. There
is no escaping from this internal mischief. And on the other
hand, if you have good men about you, the oftener they assist
you the better. But whether your colleagues relieve or aggra
vate your cares, who deserves the credit of it more than
yourself for either choosing or admitting such men ? I do
not speak of all ; for there are some whom you have not
chosen ; they have chosen you. But they have no power
except what you have either given or allowed them. So we
come back to the same point. Blame yourself for whatever
you have to suffer at the hands of him who has no more
power than what you have given him. As to the rest, with
these exceptions, the men for the work of this ministry, as
you perceive, are not to be elected or collected without due
consideration. It is your duty, like Moses, to summon,
whencesoever, and admit to their office, old men, not young
men ; old, I mean, not so much in years as character ; men
whom you have got to know because they are the elders of
the people. Surely they who are to judge the world ought to
be chosen out of the whole world. By no means let a man
meddle with this business because he begs the office. De
liberation, not entreaty, must be your guide to action. Some
things we must yield to importunate request, or grant to de
serving need. But in so doing we are disposing of our own.
When, however, it is not lawful for me to do as I wish
myself, the petitioner has no standing-place, unless, perchance,
his petition is that his wish may lawfully be mine, and not simply
that it may be mine. One man intercedes for another;
another perhaps even a-k* for himself. Suspect the man on
1 Num. \i. 16. See Appendix, p. 171.

io8 On Consideration

whose behalf you are entreated : the man who asks for himself
is already judged. It does not matter whether a man himself
asks, or does so through another man. If a cleric who does
not belong to the court is always about the court, you may be
sure he is the sort of person who is on the look out for
favours. A flatterer, and a man who smooths his tongue to
suit everybody, regard as a petitioner, even if he asks for
nothing. There is nothing in the scorpion s face to cause
alarm; the sting is in the tail.

10. If, as mostly happens, you find your heart softening
under the blandishments of such men, remember what is
written, Every man setteth on first the good wine, and when
men have drunk freely, then that which is worse. l You
should set the same value on the humility of the man who
fears and of the man who hopes. The crafty and deceitful
man has a peculiar knack of putting on the garb of humility
when he wishes to get something ; he is like those of whom
the Scripture says, There is a wicked man who hangeth down
his head sadly, but inwardly he is full of deceit. 2 To see
how true this is, take a clear and familiar illustration from
among yourselves. How many of suppliant mien have you
admitted whom you have afterwards had to put up with in their
moroseness, insolence, stubbornness, rebellion ? The secret
mischief, hidden at first, is at last revealed. The stripling
full of words, aiming at eloquence, when he is void of wisdom,
you should look upon as every way the enemy of righteousness.
To guard you against false brethren of this sort your Master
says, Lay hands hastily on no man. 3

1 1 . So, then, having shut out the whole race of these
pestilent men, make it your chief care to bring in those whose
admission you will not afterwards regret. The frequent revision

1 St. John. it. 10. 2 Ecclus. xix. 26. 3 I Tim. v. 22.

Book IV ^ Chapter iv 109

of your own acts is discreditable, and it is not fitting that your
judgement should be frequently called in question. Accord
ingly, diligently examine for yourself, and with the assistance
of the men who love you, whatever is to be done. Examine
beforehand, because, once the thing is done, correction is
too late. The wise man s counsel is, Do nothing without
counsel, and when thou hast once done thou shalt not repent. l
And be assured of this, that men fit to be admitted can hardly
find favour with the court ; if possible, therefore, your choice
should be of men approved, not to be proved. We, in our
monasteries, welcome all sorts of men in the hope of doing
them good, but the court has been accustomed to more readily
welcome good men than make men good. If, however, as
we have shown, there have been at the court more good men
who have failed than bad men who have improved, we must
certainly look for men whose failure we need not fear, and
whose progress we need not desire, inasmuch as they are
already perfect.

12. So then, in choosing men, select not him that willeth,
nor him that runneth, but such as hesitate or refuse ; even put
pressure on these, and compel them to come in. Your spirit
may rest in such, I think, as are not of a shameless forehead,
but are modest, and have the fear of God ; who fear nothing
but God, and hope for nothing but from God ; who obsi-ru 1
not the hands of those who approach them, but their neces
sities ; who stand up manfully for the afflicted, and judge in
equity for the meek upon earth ; men who are of orderly life,
proved holiness, ready to obey, meek in suffering, submissive
under discipline, stern in censuring, who hold the Catholic
faith, are faithful in their stewardship, lovers of peace and
concord, consistent in maintaining unity ; men upright in

1 Kcclus. xxxii. 19.

I 10

On Consideration

judgement, prudent in counsel, discreet in commanding,
careful in planning, strenuous in action, modest in speech ;
tranquil in adversity, devout in prosperity ; as regards zeal,
sober-minded ; prone to pity ; in leisure time not idle ; given
to hospitality, but not too convivial ; careful in business affairs,
but not anxious ; not covetous of another man s goods, nor
lavish of their own ; everywhere, and under all circumstances,
circumspect ; men who when bidden, and necessity requires,
would not decline to serve as ambassadors for Christ, nor
unbidden would aspire to the office, nor make their modest
excuses a plea for obstinate refusal ; who when sent do not
go after gold, but follow Christ; who do not regard their
commission as so much gain, nor look for reward, but seek
fruit ; who in the eyes of kings are as John, to the Egyptians
are as Moses, to fornicators as Phinees, to idolaters as Elijah,
to the covetous as Elisha, to liars as Peter, to blasphemers as
Paul, to traffickers as Christ ; who do not despise the common
people, but teach them ; do not flatter the rich, but frighten
them ; do not oppress the poor, but cherish them ; do not
dread the threats of rulers, but despise them ; do not make
a great to-do when they enter on their work, nor show signs
of anger when they leave it; who do not rob the churches, but
improve them ; do not empty men s pockets, but refresh their
hearts, and correct their offences ; who take care of their own
reputation, and do not envy another man his ; who zealously
cultivate prayerful habits, and in everything rely more on prayer
than on their own industry and labour ; whose coming bringeth
peace, whose departure we regret ; whose speech is edifying,
their life righteous, their presence a pleasure, their memory
blessed ; who to the individual are amiable not in word, but
in deed, while they command the respect of the world at large,
not by their arrogance, but by the discharge of their duties ;

Book IV, Chapter iv 1 1 1

who are humble with the humble, and innocent with the in
nocent ; who sternly rebuke the hardened, restrain the wicked,
duly recompense the proud ; who are not swift to enrich them
selves or their relations with the portion of the widow, and
the patrimony of the Crucified ; who freely give what they have
freely received, judgement to those who suffer wrong, vengeance
on nations, rebuking peoples ; who, in short, like the seventy
whom Moses chose, are perceived to have taken of your spirit,
and by it, whether absent or present, strive to please you, and
to please God ; who return to you, weary indeed, but not laden
with gifts; while they even glory, not because they have brought
with them all the curiosities and treasures of the lands, but
because they have left behind them peace to kingdoms, the law
for barbarians, quiet for monasteries, order for the churches,
discipline for the clergy, a people acceptable to God, zealous
of good works.

CHAPTER V

The Pope should refuse bribes. Martin and
Ciu itf rid. The arrogance of the Pope s at
tendants

13. I think it worth while to here plunge into the story of
our dear brother Martin, whose memory is sweet to me. You
have heard the story, but may not perhaps remember it. He
was a Cardinal Presbyter, 1 and for some time was Legate

1 Innocent II gave him this rank in A.D. 1130. His legatio date is
A.D. 1 132. He did not belong to Clairvaux, and it is not certain that he
was a Cistercian at all, He was probably one of St. Bernard s intimate
friends. The origin of Cardinal Presbyters is not clearly ascertained.
Bellarmiii thought they were so called from being fixed in some principal

112

On Consideration

in Dacia, but returned so poor that with his money almost
gone, and the horses nearly worn out, he could scarcely reach
Florence. There the bishop of the place gave him a horse,
on which he rode as far as Pisa, where we happened to be at
the time. The next day, I think it was, the bishop, who had
a lawsuit pending, with the day of hearing rapidly approaching,
followed Martin, and began to solicit the votes of his friends.
One by one their support had been solicited, and then came
Martin s turn. The bishop relied more upon him, because he
could not be unmindful of the recent act of kindness. Martin
thus replied : You have deceived me. I did not know that
this business was so close. Take your horse : there it is in
the stable. And that very hour he gave it up to him. What
say you to that, my dear Eugenius ? To think of a legate
returning from a land of gold without gold ! Does it not
sound like news from another world ? To think of his passing
through a land of silver, and not know silver ! Above all, to
have at once rejected a gift which might not have been free
from suspicion !

14. But oh ! how glad I am here to have an opportunity of
reviving the memory of a man who bears a name of sweetest
fragrance. I mean Gaufrid, Bishop of Carnotes, who for many
years, at his own expense, vigorously conducted an embassy

churches, where baptism might be administered, which were therefore
called Ecclesiae vel Titnli Carditiales\ Stillingfleet was of opinion that
they were the chief Presbyters in large and populous cities . . . chosen out
from the rest, to be as the Bishop s Council , and were therefore called
Cardinales Presbyteri. See Bingham, Antiq. I, p. 276. As the name of
"pope" or " papa" was originally common to all bishops, so the chief
presbyters and deacons of any church to which a cure of souls was attached
were apt to have the term "Cardinal " applied to them by way of distinc
tion long before it was applied to the presbyters and deacons of the parish
churches of Rome in particular (Diet. Christ, Antiq., s. v. Cardinal ).
There were twenty-eight chief parish churches in the city.

Book // , Chapter ; 113

in Aquitania. What I speak of, I saw myself. I was with
him in that country when a certain priest presented him with
a fish generally called a sturgeon. The legate inquired how
much it would fetch. I cannot , said he, * accept it unless
you receive the value ; and he paid the would-be donor,
reluctant and blushing to take the money, five gold pieces.
On another occasion, when we were in a certain town, a lady
of the place devoutly offered him, together with a towel, two
or three dessert-dishes, of beautiful workmanship, but made of
wood. The man of tender conscience gazed at them for some
time, and praised them, but he would not accept them. Was
he likely ever to receive silver dishes after refusing wooden
ones ? Nobody could say to the legate, 4 We have made
Abraham rich. l But he, like Samuel, was thus speaking
freely to all : * Witness against me before the Lord, and
before his anointed : whose ox have I taken ? or whose
ass have I taken ? whom have I defrauded ? whom have
I oppressed ? or of whose hand have I taken a bribe ? and
I will this day despise it, and I will restore it to you. a
Oh ! that there were given to us plenty of men such as these
we have glanced at. You would be the happiest man in
the world, and the age the most delightful. Would not the
blessedness of those times seem to you only next to the joys
of eternity, when, wherever you turned, you saw yourself
surrounded on all sides with so glorious a band of the blessed ?
15. If I know you, you are perplexed; you sigh deeply
and say to yourself, * Do you suppose that is ever likely
to come to pass ? Your thoughts run thus Our present
position is plain enough. How far is what you tell me
possible ? May I live and have the good fortune of seeing
it accomplished ! Oh ! that I might be spared to behold
1 Gen. xiv. 23. 2 1 Sam. xii. 3.

ST. BERNARD

ii4 Oft Consideration

the Church of God supported by such pillars ! Oh ! if I
might see my Lord s spouse in the keeping of such fidelity,
entrusted to such purity ! How blessed would be my lot !
how safe ! if I might behold about me men of that class both
guarding and bearing witness to my life, to whom I might
safely impart my secrets, and communicate my plans ; to whom
I might pour out my heart as to a second self; who, if I wished
to turn aside, would not allow me, would check me in my
headlong course : would wake me out of my slumber ; whose
respectful freedom would check my pride and correct my
error ; whose constancy and courage would steady me when
wavering, cheer me when desponding ; whose faith and holi
ness would urge me on to whatsoever things are holy, what
soever things are honourable, whatsoever things are modest,
whatsoever things are lovely and of good report. Now, my
dear Eugenius, look once more at the present condition of
the Court or Church, and the pursuits of the prelates,
particularly of those who are about your person.

1 6. So far, so good. But I have only gently touched the
wall, I have not dug into it. 1 You may dig and see, like
the son of the prophet. I must not go farther. One obvious
remark I will make. Your attendants ridiculously endeavour
to take precedence of their fellow presbyters. This is con
trary to reason, to antiquity, and to the general consent of
authority. And if trickery works, as is commonly the case,
its own downfall, surely better this than that the highest
order be despised. However that may be, their chief plea
in defence of their ambitious efforts is very absurd. * We ,
say they, are those who at every function are more closely
associated with our master, the Holy Father ; when he sits,
we sit nearest to him ; when he goes in procession, we
1 Ezek. viii. 8.

Book IV, Chapter v 1 1 y

follow next to him. All this is not a privilege accorded to
rank, but a debt due from assiduous service ; through the very
formalities of service the work gives meaning to the name of
deacon . In short, while the presbyters in ordered session
surround the throne, ye deacons stand at the foot. Ye stand
near that your master may have you in greater readiness. In
the Gospels we read that * there arose a strife among the
disciples as to which of them might seem to be the greatest V
You would be happy, Eugenius, if the rest of the things
around you could be controlled after the same pattern.*

CHAPTER VI

// is not becoming in the Pope to be absorbed in
the management of his household to the neglect
of weightier matters. He should have a
steward

1 7. We are now tired of the Court ; let us leave the palace ;
they are waiting for us at home. The inmates are not only
around you, but in a way they are inside you. It is not
superfluous to consider how you propose to order your house
hold, to provide for those who are in your lap and in your
bosom. I say that the consideration is not only not superfluous,
but that it is necessary. Listen to Paul s words, If a man
knoweth not how to rule his own house, how shall he take care
of the church of God ? 3 And again, If any man provideth
not for his own, and specially his own household, he hath
denied the faith, and is worse than an unbeliever. * When

1 St. Luke xxii. 24.

2 That is, as our Lord controlled His disciples.

3 I Tim. iii. 5. * I Tim. v. 8,

II 2

i itf On Consideration

I say this, I am not admonishing you, occupied as you are
with matters of the highest importance, to devote yourself
to the lowest ; in a way, to grow less, and spend on trifles
what you owe to weighty affairs. Why entangle yourself
in those things from which God has rescued you ? All
these things , He says, shall be added unto you. * Still,
you ought to do these things, and not leave the others undone.
But while you personally attend to the great things, you should
also personally provide representatives to see to your little
things. For if a single servant cannot at the same time look
after the cattle, and take charge of the tables, how can you
without assistance attend both to your own house and to the
house of the Lord ? Of this latter we read, O Israel, how
great is the house of the Lord ! 2 Your mind, intent on
matters of so great and so varied importance, ought, in fact,
to be relieved of all anxiety for more trifling and baser things.
It should be free from all prepossessing and engrossing occu
pations. It should be of such nobility that no unworthy
affection can drag it down. It should be so straightforward
that no evil purpose can turn it aside. It should be cautious
without harbouring stealthy suspicion. It should be watchful
lest it be distracted by impertinent and inquisitive thoughts.
It should be so rooted and grounded that it be not shaken by
any sudden blast. 3 It should be invincible, so that it sink not
under even lasting tribulation. It should be so large that it
can find ample room for any temporal loss.

1 8. Be quite sure that you must be stripped of these
blessings, and smitten with these curses, if you divide your

1 St. Matt. vi. 33. 2 Baruch iii. 24.

The mind I sway by, and the heart I bear,
Shall never sagg with doubt, nor shake with fear.

Macbeth, v. iii. 9-10.

Book IV, Chapter vi 1 1 7

attention and wish to share yourself between the things of God
and your own trivial affairs. You must get some one for the
work, some one to do the grinding for you. For you, I say,
not with you. There are some things you will do yourself,
some with the assistance of other men, and some entirely
through the agency of others. Who is a wise man, and he
will understand these things ? You must not let your con
sideration go to sleep over them. Now, in my opinion, the
details of your household management belong to the class last
mentioned. As I have intimated, you will do them by means
of someone else. But your representative, if he be not faithful,
will cheat ; if he be not prudent, men will cheat him. So then,
you must look out for a man both faithful and prudent to set
over your household. 1 Still, he will be useless if a third
quality be lacking. Do you ask what this is ? It is authority.
For what is the good of his wishing to manage, and knowing
how, as necessity arises, if he cannot act according to his
wishes and his knowledge ? You must therefore give him a
free hand. If you think this is unreasonable, bear in mind
that he is a faithful servant, who, nevertheless, desires to
follow reason ; and he is a prudent servant, who, never-
tliele^s, knows how to follow reason. But a faithful and
sagacious will can only avail when it is so adequately sup
ported that it can act with perfect ease and freedom, and
command the unhesitating obedience of all. All the rest
must therefore be under him. Let him brook no opposition.
Let there be no one to say, * Why have you done so ? Let him
have power to shut out and let in whom he chooses, to change
the servants, to transfer the service to whom he likes and
when he likes. Let all so fear him that all may benefit by
him. Let him be before all that he may be- a boon to all,
1 St. Matt. xxiv. 45.

1 1 8 On Consideration

and in all respects. Do not lend an ear when he is secretly
disparaged by whisperers and backbiters ; rather rebuke such
slanderers. And I would like you to make a general rule of
regarding with suspicion any man who is afraid to say openly
what he has told you privately. But if in your judgement it
ought to be told face to face, and he refuse, pronounce him an
informer, not an accuser.

19. So then let one person assign their several duties to all
the rest, and let the rest be responsible to the one person.
You should trust him, and so gain time for yourself and the
Church of God. If the choice lies between a trustworthy
servant and a prudent one, it is better to appoint the former.
Of the two this is certainly the safer course. However, if
you cannot find a suitable person, even if a man be not so
faithful as he ought, I advise you to put up with it rather
than lose your way in this labyrinth of domestic care. Re
member that Judas was our Lord s steward. 1 What is more
disgraceful for a bishop than that he should spend his energy
on his furniture, and his bit of property ? He should not be
always prying into things, asking about every thing, eaten up
with suspicion, and disturbed at every little loss or symptom
of neglect. I say this to shame some of that sort, who never
let a day pass without taking an inventory of all their belong
ings, reckoning up every item, and demanding an account of
mites and farthings. Not so the Egyptian who gave up all
to Joseph, and knew not what he had in his house. 2 The
Christian should blush who cannot trust a Christian with his pro
perty. He was not a believer, but he had faith in his servant,
and set him over all his goods and the servant was a foreigner.

20. Herein is a marvellous thing. The bishops can com
mand men enough and to spare for the trust of souls, and yet

1 St. John xii. 6. 2 Gen. xxxix. 6.

Book IV, Chapter vi 119

cannot find a single person in whose hands they may place
their small estates. They must be excellent judges of the
relative values of things to take such great care of the smallest
matters, and so little of the greatest. But, as we are given to
clearly understand, we do more patiently suffer Christ s loss
than our own. We meet our daily expenditure with a daily
scrutiny, and know nothing of the constant damage which the
Lord s flock sustains. There is a daily discussion with our
servants about the price of food and the number of loaves :
a conference with our presbyters to consider the sins of our
people is a very rare occurrence. The ass falls, and there is
some one to lift him up : the soul perishes, and no one takes
account thereof. And no wonder, when we do not perceive
our own unceasing defects ! Are we not angry, do we not
burn with indignation, are we not tormented with anxiety,
whenever we cast up the figures ? How much more patiently
should we bear material than mental loss ! Wherefore , says
the Apostle, do ye not rather suffer to be defrauded ? l
You who teach others, pray teach yourself, if you have not
already done so, to set a higher price upon yourself than upon
your belongings. Those transitory things which cannot abide
with you, make them pass away from you, not through you.
The flowing stream hollows out a channel for itself; similarly
temporal things coursing through the mind eat away the con
science. If the torrent can sweep across the fields without
injuring the crops, you may confidently exj ect to handle such
matters without mental hurt. I counsel you by all means to
endeavour to divert the onset of these things. Many of them
should be unknown to you, the greater number be unnoticed,
some forgotten.

2 1 . There are, however, some things as to which I would
1 i Cor. vi. 7.

i2o On Consideration

not have you ignorant : I refer to the character and pursuits of
your various servants. You ought not to be the last to know
the faults of your household, which, as we are aware, is the ex
perience of very many. Wherefore, as I have said, let another
manage the rest, but do you yourself see to the discipline.
Trust that to nobody. If in your presence there is any ten
dency to arrogant conversation, or showy dress, stretch out
your hand against such offences ; be yourself the avenger of
the wrong done to you. Impunity is the mother of audacity,
audacity brings forth excess. Holiness becomes the house of
a bishop, modesty becomes it, good repute becomes it ; the
guardian of all these is discipline. The priests of the house
hold are either more highly esteemed than others, or they are
the common talk. In the look, dress, gait of the priests
about your person you should allow no trace of immodesty
or indecency. Let your fellow bishops learn from you not
to have about them boys with their hair curled, or effeminate
youths. 1 It is surely unbecoming for a bishop to go hither
and thither surrounded by fops who wear the turban and use
the curling iron. And remember the admonition of the wise
man, They are thy daughters : make not thy face cheerful
toward them. z

22. And yet what I am commending to you is not austerity,
but gravity. The former puts to flight the weaklings ; the
latter checks the frivolous. If a man be austere, he is odious :
if he be not grave, he becomes contemptible ; yet in everything
there is a happy medium. I would not have you act with

1 Archbishop Anselm (A.D. 1094-5) in the beginning of Lent, when
the Court was at Hastings, refused to give the customary ashes and benedic
tion to the young nobles who affected an effeminate style of dress and
manners wearing long hair which they curled and adorned like women.

2 Ecclus. vii. 24.

Book IV ^ Chapter i<i 121

too great severity, nor with too great laxity. What is more
pleasing than that moderation which prevents your severity
making you oppressive, and your familiarity making you con
temptible ? In the palace be the Holy Father, at home the
father ot the family. Let your household love you ; if they
do not, make them fear you. It is always well to so keep the
door of the lips as not to shut out the grace of affability. The
hasty tongue must therefore always be bridled, but specially
at the feast. Your deportment will be most fitting if in action
you are strict, in look cheerful, in speech serious. Let not
the chaplains, and those who are associated with you in the
divine offices, be without honour. It is for you to provide
yourself with such men as are worthy. Let all pay attention
to them, as it is to yourself. Let them receive at your hand
what is necessary for their support. Let them be content
with the provision you make for them, and do you see that
they want not. If you catch one of them begging more from
your visitors, judge him as you would Gchazi ; * and you must
have the same rule for the doorkeepers, and the other officials.
But all this is superfluous, for I remember that you long ago
planned it all. What is more worthy of your apostk shi]> :
What more wholesome for your conscience, more conducive
to good report, more profitable by way of example? It is an
excellent rule to banish greed beyond the reach of scandal, 2
and not only to be innocent of it.

1 2 Kings v. 2O.

8 Isa. xxxiii. 15. The Vulgate has qiii proiiclt . , . ex caiumnia.
R. V. who despiseth the gain of oppressions, or (Margin" fraud .

122 On Consideration

CHAPTER VII
The ideal Pope

23. I will now bring this book to a close, but in ending
I should like by way of epilogue to either recapitulate some
things already said, or add some which I passed over. Before
all, consider that the holy Roman Church of which God has
made you head, is the mother of churches, not their mistress ;
but that you are not sovereign lord of the bishops, but one of
them, the brother, too, of those who love God, and a partaker
with them that fear Him. As for the rest, consider that you
ought to be a model of righteousness, a mirror of holiness,
a pattern of piety, the asserter of truth, the defender of the
faith, the teacher of nations, the guide of Christians, the friend
of the bridegroom, the leader of the bride to her spouse, the
ordainer of the clergy, the shepherd of the people, the instructor
of the foolish, the refuge of the oppressed, the advocate of the
poor, the hope of the wretched, the protector of the father
less, the judge of the widow, the eye of the blind, the tongue
of the dumb, the staff of the aged, the avenger of wicked
ness, the fear of bad men, the glory of the good, a rod for
the powerful, a hammer for tyrants, the father of kings, the
mitigater of laws, the dispenser from canons, the salt of the
earth, the light of the world, the priest of the Most High,
the vicar of Christ, the Lord s anointed, and lastly the God
of Pharaoh. Understand what I say : the Lord will give
thee understanding. When power and wickedness go hand
in hand, we must claim something for you more than human.
Let your countenance be upon them that do evil. 1 Let him
1 Ps. xxxiv. 16.

Book y/ 7 , Chapter vii 123

who fears not man, nor dreads the sword, fear the breath of
your anger. Let him fear your prayer who has despised your
admonition. Let him think that he who incurs your wrath
incurs the wrath not of man but of God. He who has not
heard you, let him quake at the thought that God will hear
you, and will be against him. We now turn to the discussion
of what remains, namely, the things above you. I shall hope,
with God s help, to pay this debt in one book, and so be quit
of my promise.

BOOK V

[IN this book St. Bernard considers the things above us (ch. i),
first discussing the respective provinces of Opinion, Faith, and
Understanding (ch. ii, iii), then proceeding to the Holy Angels
(ch. iv, v), the Being of God (ch. vi, vii, viii, xi), the Person of
Christ (ch. ix, x). In ch. xii we have God the Judge, and
a conception of Hell in striking accord with much of the exposi
tion of modern times. The book concludes (ch. xiv) with an
impressive illustration of the mystical interpretation of Holy
Scripture (Eph. iii. 18) God regarded as length, breadth,
height, depth , and our comprehension of Him as such.

The Schoolmen. The term scholastic originally denoted
a teacher in the schools founded throughout his empire by
Charlemagne under the direction of our countryman, Alcuin
of York. Used as an adjective, the word described the
subjects taught scholastic history/ scholastic philosophy,
scholastic theology/ during the thousand years of the Tran
sition Period, from the sixth to the sixteenth century.

In a movement so extended there were, of course, many
developments. Of the schoolmen by whom St. Bernard
may have been influenced, directly or indirectly, we need only
mention John Scotus Erigena, John the Irishman (b. between
A. D. 800 and A. D. 810, d. about A. D. 877); Berengarius
of Tours (A. D. 999-1088); Lanfranc, his opponent (b.
A. D. 1005, d. A. D. 1089, Abbot of Bee, and from A. D.
1070 Abp. of Canterbury); Roscelin, the reputed founder of
Nominalism (condemned at the Council of Soissons, A. D.
1092) ; William of Champeaux (b. A. D. 1070, d. A. D. 1121);
Abelard, pupil of the two preceding (b. A. D. 1079, d. A. D.
1142); Anselm (b. A. D. 1033, d. A. D. 1109, also Abbot
of Bee and Abp. of Canterbury) ; and Gilbert of Poitiers,
whose views were discussed at Rheims (A.D. 1148).

Whatever may be said of after times when Dialectics
became a branch of professorial study in the Universities of
the Middle Ages, it would be doing great injustice to repre
sent these men as mere triflers, hair-splitters, verbal quibblers,
syllogistic conjurers, and so forth. They often described

BOO( r 125-

wearisome circles, rushed vehemently into culs-dc-sac, wandered
about a labyrinth, vainly demanding an outlet . Many of their
folios may be fossils, but we may surely believe that their
way was foreseen, that they had a Guide, that there was
a method which all these bewilderments were to help them in
finding out . There were deep fires burning in their bosoms,
and both the intellect and the affections were in training for
the better future.

Nor would it be right to represent them as in revolt against
authority. The human reason was awaking after its long
slumber, and the giant was not easily controlled. The
revolt was not so much against authority, as against logic.
John the Irishman rightly felt that Aristotle s Categories
belonged to the regions of sensible and intelligible things,
but that when we ascend to the consideration of Him who
transcends sense and intelligence, logical categories are out of
place God is neither Genus, Species, nor Accident. There
was an earnest desire, not to uproot the Faith, but to find an
intellectual basis for it, not to discard either reason or faith,
but to reconcile their claims. * Realism , Nominalism,
Conceptualism, to vast numbers are only names, but to
those who have eyes to see they stand for the profoundest
controversy which has ever engaged the thought of man, and
are expressions of man s determination to get, if possible, to
the bottom of things, and ascertain if reality anywhere exists,
or life is but a dream. liven Abelard all grudges between
him and Bernard were set at rest ; let us, too, think tenderly,
and speak gently of him ! is entitled to our gratitude and

1 How holily, how devotedly, in what a Catholic spirit he first made
confession of his faith, then of his sins ; with what an affection of heart he
received the food for his journey, the pledge of eternal life, the Body of
the Redeemer; how faithfully he commended his body and soul to Him ;
our brothers are witness, and the whole society of that monastery. Thus
Master Peter (Abelard) finished his days, and lie who was known through
out the world for an unparalleled master of science, persevering in the
learning of Him who said " Learn of me for I am meek and lowly of
heart ", passed, as we have a right to believe, into His presence. Let ten
from Cluni, where Abelard was staying just before his death, and where

126 On Consideration

respect. There were doubtless faults in his intellectual
temper, he may or may not have been the frst champion
of free inquiry , but he strove for the emancipation of reason,
without which magna est veritas et praevalebit will never be
a maxim of the possible.

From the time when Boethius (about A.D. 520) wrote his
treatise on The Unity of God against the Arians, Nestorians,
and Eutychians, the name into which we are baptized was all
through the Middle Ages the subject of ceaseless speculation
and discussion. We may deplore the fact that so sacred
a theme should be the shuttlecock of logic, but once reason
began to move, it would infallibly set itself problems, onto-
logical, psychological, metaphysical, in trying to solve the
mystery of God the highest and greatest object of thought,
the answer of both Anselm and Bernard to the question,
What is God ? And it is not difficult to see the working
of the principle of compensation : wisdom is justified of her
children. If theology received from logic a portion of its
dryness and formality J , it is no less true that logic received
from theology its personality and vehemence . Some power
ful stimulus to thought was needed in the days of barbaric
indifference. What likely to be so potent as the dogmas of
predestination, Christ s presence in the Eucharist, and, under
lying these, the being and nature of God, the root of all
things and all thought ?

St. Bernard was neither by taste nor training qualified to
take a distinguished part in the dialectics of his time. He
could not speculate like Anselm, nor argue like Abelard.
He hated heresies as foes to practical life, as disturbers of the
devotion of monasteries, as hinderers of the common action of
the Christian nations against the Infidels : he was no less a
determined opponent of the logic of the schools ; he was, how
ever, a saint, not a doctor ; and if he overcame the objects of
his fiery wrath, if Abelard and Gilbert both submitted, it was
not because of the fine temper of his sword or the skill with

he was first buried by the monks. His remains were afterwards removed
to the oratory of the Paraclete which he founded. Heloise was prioress
of the latter.

Book V 127

which he used it, but because he bore them down by his
earnestness, his impetuosity, his reputation for holiness, and
the sheer weight of his unrivalled authority.

Once more there is perhaps reason for gratitude. If
St. Bernard had been differently constituted, our libraries
might have been encumbered with more * fossil folios , to the
loss of his inspiring exhortations and such helpful medita
tions on the Godhead as he communicated to Eugenius.
St. Anselm thus poured out his soul I do not attempt,
O Lord, to penetrate Thy profundity, because in no sense
can I compare it with my intellect : but I do desire to
comprehend Thy truth, even though imperfectly, that truth
which my heart believes and cherishes. For I seek not to
comprehend in order to believe, but I believe in order to com
prehend. I believe, because if I did not believe, I should
never comprehend. St. Bernard s attitude was somewhat
different. It cannot be better expressed than in the words
of Frederick Denison Maurice Bernard did not dislike
Abelard mainly as a rebel against authority, but as outraging
what he conceived to be the divine charity or love. Righteous
ness was not so much the foundation of his mind as it was of
Anselm s. He was not nearly so just a man. But no writer
of any age has dwelt more upon love as constituting the very
being and nature of God, and as the perfection of man because
he is made in the image of God. This is the characteristic
feature of his mind ; in it, we believe, lay the secret of his
power. The idea of the Trinity was in him the idea of the
absolute, all-embracing love. Any other basis of divinity he
abhorred. The intellectual conceptions of Abelard were in
different to him when they were applied to any other subject,
were utterly offensive when applied to theology. The ex
planations which were welcomed with so much enthusiasm by
Abelard s youthful hearers, were to him the dry, hard substi
tutes for a living truth. That which appeared to quicken and
inspire them, smelt in his nostrils of the grave and the charnel-
house/ Hence St. Bernard s portrait of Alx-lard laid before
the Pope Ponit in coelum os suum ft scrutatur aha Dei*

1 Maurice, Mediceval Philosophy; Lewes, ///>/. of Philosophy, vol. ii ;

ia8 On Consideration

Mysticism. The name given to a school of thought which
arose in the way of recoil from the cold and exact logic of
Scholasticism in the twelfth century. Its leading idea is that
perfect holiness and spiritual knowledge are to be attained by
devout contemplation rather than by outward means of grace
and theological study. The three stages of such perfection
are defined as Purification, Illumination, and Perfect Union
with God (Diet, of Doctrinal and Historical Theology, p. 501).
It was no novelty in St. Bernard s century ; contemplative
natures must have been at all times disposed towards it ; the
older monastic systems are said to have been characterized
by it in a high degree ; and the writings of the fifth century,
falsely attributed to Dionysius the Areopagite (Acts xvii. 34)
had great influence on the religious thought of the Middle
Ages. John the Irishman was the first to combine Mysticism
with Scholasticism. In his leading work, the De Divisions
Naturae, he puts the following prayer into the mouth of the
student God, our salvation and redemption, who hast given
us nature, grant to us also grace. Manifest Thy light to us,
feeling after Thee, and seeking Thee, in the shades of ignor
ance. Recall us from our errors. Stretch out Thy right
hand to us weak ones who cannot, without Thee, come to
Thee. Show Thyself to those who seek nothing besides
Thee. Break the clouds of vain phantasies which suffer not the
eye of the mind to behold Thee in that way in which Thou per-
mittest those that long to behold that face of Thine, though it
is invisible, which is their rest, the end beyond which they
crave for nothing, seeing that there cannot be any good beyond
it that is higher than itself. The orthodox mystics of the
twelfth century had a common aim, viz. to reconcile the
claims of contemplative piety with those of scientific theology,
but expressed themselves very differently. Bernard held that
not argument but holiness comprehends the things of God ;
Hugo of St. Victor (A.D. 1097-1141) laid down the principle
that the uncorrupted truth of things cannot be discovered by
reasoning ; Richard of St. Victor, disciple of this last (d.

Ueberweg, Hist, of Philosophy, vol. i ; Morison, Life and Times of
$t. Bernard; Church, Life of St. Anselm, &c., &c.

Booh

129

A. D. 1173) treated the faculty of mystical contemplation as
superior to the imagination and the reason. Another Victorian,
Walter (about A. D. 1180) gave to Abelard, Peter Lombard,
Gilbert, and Peter of Poitiers the name of the four labyrinths
of France. In the following century Bonaventura (d. A.D. 1274)
rose to the full height of sublimity, or extravagance, by sub
ordinating all human wisdom to divine illumination. He did
not see how could he, when the doctrine of the Holy Spirit,
the Source of all life, physical, intellectual, moral, spiritual,
was so little understood ? that true human wisdom // divine
illumination . It is related that Thomas Aquinas, the angeli
cal doctor, on a visit to Bonaventura, whose Itinerary of the
mind to God had won for him the title of the seraphic
doctor, asked to be permitted to see the latter s library. Bona
ventura pointed to the crucifix, and said it was there that he
had learnt all he knew. This is the * spirit of the Mystics,
and a beautiful spirit it is. With the Mysticism of later
periods we are not concerned.]

CHAPTER I

The things above 3 us, namely y God and things
T)ivine, to which we rise by means of the
Creatures

i . The former books, although they bear the title * On
Consideration , have very much in them relating to action,
inasmuch as they teach or admonish that some things should
be not only considered, but also done. But the present book
will treat of Consideration only. For the things which are
above you and that is our topic -do not call for action, but
for contemplation. It is impossible to take a part in those
things which in one sense ever are, and ever will be : some of
which, moreover, ever have been. And I would have you,

ST. BERNARD

130 On Consideration

my dear Eugenius, wisest of men, shrewdly observe what
I am going to say, namely, that your consideration goes from
home as often as it turns from the things above to the visible
things below, whether these have to be studied with a view to
knowledge, or sought for use, or administered and performed
in the discharge of duty. Still, if your consideration so en
gages in the things below as to seek the things above, it is
not banished far. Consideration thus employed is a returning
home. That is a higher and worthier use of things present,
when, according to the wisdom of Paul, the invisible things of
God are clearly seen, being perceived through the things that
are made. 1 The citizens, doubtless, have no need of the
ladder ; exiles have, as the author of the words I have quoted
himself observed ; for, although he said that things invisible
are clearly seen through things visible, he significantly added,
from the created world. 2 And, indeed, what need of steps
for him who is already on the throne ? Consideration is one
of the creatures of heaven, and is equipped for deeper
insight into the things of heaven. It sees the Word, and
in the Word the things made through the Word. It has no
need to beg the knowledge of the Maker from the things
which have been made. For even to gain a knowledge of
these things, it does not descend to them : it sees them
where they are far better seen than in themselves. Hence it
is that to reach them Consideration does not seek the medium
of the senses: it perceives them immediately, and is self-
percipient. That is the best sort of vision when you lack
nothing, when you have your heart s desire, and find con
tentment in yourself. Otherwise, you run some risk of

1 Rom. i. 20.

2 Created universe. But the context requires a contrast between
mundus and coelum. See Gifford, Sanday and Headlam, Ep. Rom.

Book V, Chapter i 131

seeking satisfaction elsewhere, and this is to fall beneath the
standard of perfection, and enjoy less freedom.

2. And why should you want the lower things? Is it
not absurd and unworthy of you ? Clearly, by longing for
the things below, you do some wrong to the things above :
though I admit that mortal man will never be guiltless of such
wrongdoing until the time come when he will have escaped
into the freedom of the sons of God. For they will all then
be taught of God, 1 and without the medium of any creature
will be blessed in God alone. This will be a returning home,
when we leave the country of our bodies and reach the realm
of spirits I mean our God, the Mighty Spirit, the great
abiding place of the spirits of the blessed. There is no place
here for the intrusion of sense or imagination ; this realm is
truth, it is wisdom, virtue, eternity, the highest good. For
a while we are absent from it ; our present abode is a valley,
the vale of tears, where the senses have dominion, and Con
sideration is an exile : where the bodily sense freely and
powerfully manifests itself, but the eye of the spirit is veiled
in darkness. What wonder, then, if Consideration, being a
foreigner, needs a native s help? And in passing through
time to eternity the traveller is to be congratulated who has
been able to win for himself the indispensable services of the
citizens ; using them, not delighting in them ; compelling
them, though not master of them ; demanding them, not
^r them.

1 St. John vi. 45.

132 On Consideration

CHAPTER II
The Steps of Consideration

3. He is a great man who makes it his concern to utilize
the senses, spending, as it were, the wealth of the citizens in
thus providing for his own salvation and the salvation of many.
And he is no less a man who has made philosophy a stepping-
stone to the things invisible. The only difference is that there
is more pleasure in the latter, more profit in the former : the
one has more happiness, the other indicates more strength.
But he is the greatest of all who, scorning the use of sensible
things, so far as human frailty permits, has accustomed him
self, not by gradual steps, but by sudden ecstatic flights l to
soar aloft to the glorious things on high. I suppose Paul s
ecstasies 2 were of this last description : they were departures
[from the senses], not the ascent [of the senses] ; for he him
self relates that he did not ascend into Paradise, but was rather
caught up thither. This is what he means by saying If we
mentally depart, it is to the glory of God . 3 Moreover, when
Consideration, even in the place of its sojourning, through the
pursuit of virtue, and with the help of grace, has gained
the upper hand, these three results follow : it either checks

1 Excessus, literally departures. Ecstasy is defined as an extra
ordinary state of feeling in which the mind stands out of or is detached
from sensible things .

2 2 Cor. xii. 4.

3 2 Cor. v. 13. Vulg. mente excedimus, the reference being to the
ecstasies themselves, not to the criticisms of St. Paul s opponents on
them. The Revised Version translates are beside ourselves, i. e. are
mad. See Stanley on Corinthians , &c.

Book V, Chapter it 133

the senses, 1 lest they assert themselves too strongly: or
draws them in, lest they go too far afield : or shuns them,
lest they defile. In the first case the mark of Considera
tion is strength, in the second freedom, in the third purity.
For such a flight of the spirit is only made with the wing of
purity on the one side, and of rapture on the other.

4. You would like to know the distinguishing names of
these various kinds of Consideration. Let us say, if you
please, that the first is economical, the second estimative, the
third speculative. The meaning will appear from the defini
tions. Consideration is economical that of the steward 2
when it makes systematic use of the senses and of sensible
things in daily life so as to win the favour of God. It is
* estimative that of the valuer when it wisely and dili
gently searches everything, and weighs everything, to find God.
It is speculative when it retires within itself, and so far as
Divine help is given, detaches itself from human affairs in
order to contemplate God. I suppose you carefully observe
that the last is the fruit of the others, and that the others, if
they stand unrelated to it, may seem to be what they are called,
but are not really so. And unless the first keeps the last in
view, it sows much and reaps nothing ; moreover, unless the
second makes the last its goal, it walks, but does not walk
forth. So then, what the first desires, the second scents," 1
the third tastes. To this taste, however, the others also bring
us, though more slowly ; and there is a further difference the
first is the more toilsome road, the second the more peaceful.

1 Literally, stmualtty; but the context ihows that the word had not iu
modern associations.

2 Oikonomos, for which the Vulgate equivalent is dispensator in
St. Luke xii. 43 ; i Cor. iv. I, 3 ; Titus i. 7 ; I Pet. iv. 10. St. Bernard s
word is disptnsativa. s R cading odoratur.

134 n Consideration

CHAPTER III
Opinion, Faith, and Understanding

5. Enough about the way up, you say ; I have still to tell
you whither you must ascend. You deceive yourself if you
expect me to do that ; it transcends the power of speech. Do
you think that I can utter what eye hath not seen, nor ear heard,
and has not entered into the heart of man P 1 God , the apostle
says, has revealed them to us by His Spirit. 2 So then the
things which are above are not taught by words, they are
revealed by the Spirit. But what speech does not explain let
Consideration seek, prayer desire, the life merit, purity attain.
At all events, when I admonish you to consider the things
which are above you, do not think that I am sending you to
gaze at the sun, moon, and stars ; no, not the firmament itself,
nor the waters which are above the heavens. For all these
things, though locally above , are in point of value beneath
you, even in dignity of nature, as they are material existences.
Your portion is the spirit, whereby you in vain look for any
thing above you which is not spirit. Moreover, God is a Spirit,
and so are the holy angels, and they are above you. But God
is a Spirit in virtue of His nature, the angels are your superiors
through grace. The special excellence both of yourself and
of angelic beings is reason ; but in God there is no peculiar
excellence ; He is altogether excellent. He, and the blessed
spirits who are with Him, must in three ways, as it were along
their several paths, be by our Consideration sought after the
paths of opinion, faith, and understanding. Of these, under
standing depends on reason, faith on authority, while opinion
1 Isa. Ixiv. 4. 2 I Cor. ii. lo.

Book V, Chapter Hi 135-

safeguards itself by probability only. Two of them attain to
the certainty of truth, but faith possesses truth out of sight and
implied, understanding has it naked and manifest ; opinion,
having no certainty, does not so much apprehend truth as seek
it through probabilities.

6. The utmost caution must be exercised so as to avoid
confusion, lest the uncertainties of opinion crystallize into
articles of faith, or the foundation verities of faith become the
questionable matter of opinion. And we should bear this in
mind that opinion venturing on assertion is rash ; faith, if it
hesitate, is weak ; and understanding, if it try to break into the
sealed mysteries of faith, is deemed a burglar, and a spy upon
the secrets of the throne. Many have taken their own opinion
for understanding, and have thus erred. And in truth opinion
may be taken for understanding ; understanding cannot be taken
for opinion. How so ? Surely because opinion may be de
ceived, understanding cannot be ; if it could, it would not be
understanding, but opinion. For true understanding has not
only certain truth, but the knowledge of truth. We may thus
define each of them. Faith is, by the exercise of the will,
a sure foretaste of truth not yet manifested. Understanding
is the sure and clear knowledge of some invisible thing.
Opinion is the holding something provisionally true which you
do not know to be false. So then, as I have said, faith is
free from doubts ; if it have doubts it is not faith, but opinion.
How, then, does it differ from understanding ? Inasmuch as,
although there be no more uncertainty in it than there is in
understanding, still it has a veil before its eyes, which is not
the case with understanding. In short, if you understand
a thing, further inquiry is needless ; if further inquiry be
necessary, you do not understand. But there is nothing we
would rather know than what we already know by faith. When

1 3 6 On Consideration

the veil shall have been utterly removed from the things of
which we are now assured by faith, the cup of bliss will be full.

CHAPTER IV
The Angels

7. Well now, having thus cleared the way, let us turn our
consideration to our mother, Jerusalem above, and with caution
and close attention, by all three ways enumerated, search out
the things unsearchable, so far, I mean, as may be lawful, or
rather, so far as shall be given to us. And first let us remember
that the citizens of that country are spirits, mighty, glorious,
blessed, separate personalities, of graduated rank, from the
beginning standing in their own order, perfect of their kind,
having ethereal bodies, endowed with immortality, passionless ;
not so created, but so made that is, through grace, not by
nature ; beings of pure mind, benignant affections, religious and
devout ; of unblemished morality ; inseparably one in heart and
mind, blessed with unbroken peace, God s building, dedicated
to the divine praises and service. All this we ascertain by
reading, and hold by faith. But as regards their bodies, some
authorities hesitate to say not only whence they are derived,
but whether in any real sense they exist at all. If any one is
inclined to think the derivation of these bodies a matter of
opinion, I do not dispute the point. Further, if we hold that
the angelic beings are endowed with understanding, this is not
of faith, nor is it mere opinion ; it is a conclusion of our under
standing ; for if they had not understanding, they could not
be partakers of the Divine nature. There are likewise certain
names, known to us by the hearing of the ear, by means of
which the duties, merits, ranks, orders, of these blessed ones,

Book V, Chapter iv 137

things only faintly heard by mortal ear, in one way or another
may be conjectured and distinguished. But, in truth, what
does not come by hearing is not of faith, for faith cometh
by hearing. * And so we may speak conjecturally of these
topics. For what is the good of our knowing the names
of the celestial beings if we may not, without prejudice to
faith, form some opinion as to the things the names denote ?
Angels, Archangels, Virtues, Powers, Principalities, Domin
ions, Thrones, Cherubim, and Seraphim these are the names.
What do they signify ? Is there no difference between those
spirits who are simply called Angels and those who are called
Archangels ?

8. What, then, is the meaning of this difference in degree ?
Let us suppose (unless your consideration has showed you
something better) that they are called Angels who are believed
to have been given as guardians of individual men, sent to
minister, as Paul teaches, 2 on behalf of those who are the
heirs of salvation ; it was of these the Saviour said, * Their
angels do always behold the face of your Father/ 3 Let us
suppose that over these are the Archangels, who, admitted to
a knowledge of the Divine secrets, are not sent except for
particular and very weighty reasons. From among these the
great Archangel Gabriel was, as we read, sent to Mary, 4 and
for the greatest of all reasons. Let us suppose that above
these are the Virtues, by whose command or operation signs
and wonders wrought in the elements, or through the elements,
appear for the warning of mortal men. Perhaps this explains
why it is that after reading in the Gospels/ " There shall be

1 Rom. x. 17.

2 Hcb. i. 14. St. Bernard assumes St. Paul to be the author of the
Epistle.

8 St. Matt, xriii. 10. * St. Luke i. 26. " St. Luke xxi. 25.

138 On Consideration

signs in the sun, and the moon, and the stars, a little farther
on you have, for the Virtues of the heavens shall be moved : *
the spirits, no doubt, through whom the signs are wrought.
Let us suppose that the Powers are their superiors, and that
by their vigour the power of darkness is checked, and the
malignant spirits of this lower air are restrained, that they
may not do harm to their full intent : that they may not be
able to show their malignity, except for beneficial ends. Let
us suppose that the Principalities are also preferred to these
last, and that by their regulating wisdom all sovereignty
upon earth is established, ruled, limited, transferred, curtailed,
changed. Let us suppose that the Dominions tower above the
aforesaid orders to such a height that in comparison of these
all the rest appear to be administrative spirits, and that to
the Dominions, as it were to their masters, the Principalities
account for their commands, the Powers for their defences,
the Virtues for their operations, the Archangels for their
revelations, the Angels for their care and foresight. Let us
suppose that the Thrones have winged their flight far away
beyond even the Dominions, that they are called Thrones
because they sit on thrones, and that they therefore sit because
God is seated in them. For He could not be seated in those
who were not themselves seated. Do you ask what I mean
by that sitting ? The deepest tranquillity, the utmost calm
ness and serenity, the peace which passes all understanding.
Such is the Lord of Hosts, who sitteth in the Thrones,
tranquilly judging all things, perfectly calm, serene, peaceful.
And such He made the Thrones, most like Himself. Let

1 The corresponding Greek word elsewhere (Rom. viii. 38, I Pet. iii,
22) denotes the angels, but in this passage and the parallel passage in
St. Matt, it probably denotes the greater heavenly bodies, the ruling
lights. See Alford, &c.

Book V, Chapter iv 139

us suppose the Cherubim to drink at the very fount of wisdom,
the mouth of the Most High, and in turn to pour forth the
streams of knowledge for all their fellow citizens. May not
this be the rushing river, the streams whereof make glad the
city of God/ l of which the prophet spake ? Let us suppose
the Seraphim to be spirits inflamed with the Divine fire, kindling
all things, so that the citizens may be each a burning and
a shining lamp, burning with charity, shining with knowledge.
9. How good it is, Eugenius, for us to be here ! But
how much better will it be if we ever altogether follow on
whither we have in part gone before ! Our hearts lead the
way, but not our whole hearts ; only a part, and too often
a small part. While our affections are weighed down by the
bodily tabernacle, and our desires cleave to the mire, contem
plation, thin and spiritless, is left to wing its flight all alone.
And yet out of the depths of its poverty it will cry, O Lord,
I have loved the beauty of Thine house, and the place where
Thy glory dwelleth. 2 But suppose the soul were to collect
itself, and the affections were brought back from all places
wheresoever they are kept captive, through fearing what
they ought not, loving what they should not, sorrowing in
vain, rejoicing still more in vain. Suppose the soul, I
say, accompanied by these affections and possessed of full
freedom, were to wing its vigorous unimpeded flight, satis
fied, as it were, with the marrow and fatness of grace ;
once it begins to travel round the abodes of light, and
more intently gaze upon Abraham s dear bosom, and see
4 beneath the altar , whatever that may mean, the souls of the
martyrs with utmost patience waiting in their first robe to be
clothed with the second, will it not then much more earnestly
say with the prophet, * One thing have I asked of the Lord,
1 Ps. xlvi. 4. a Ps. xxvi. 8.

140 On Consideration

that will I seek after : that I may dwell in the house of the
Lord all the days of my life, to behold the fair beauty of
the Lord, and to visit His temple ? l What prevents the
heart of God being there revealed ? Why should it not there
be proved what is * the will of God, the good, acceptable, and
perfect will ? 2 good in itself, pleasing in its effects, accept
able to those who have fruition of it, perfect to the perfect
who seek nothing beyond it. Bowels of mercy are disclosed,
thoughts of peace, the riches of salvation, the mysteries of the
good will, secrets of loving-kindness, which, shut out from
mortal ken, are only guessed at even by the elect. But even
in this there is something salutary: men might otherwise cease
to fear before they are found fit to worthily love.

10. In the heavenly beings who are called Seraphim we may
discern how He loves who has no cause to love, and who also
hates nothing that He has made ; how He cherishes those
whom He has made for salvation, teaches them to go, 3 embraces
them, how the fire of His love consumes the sins of His
elect youth, and the chaff of their ignorances, throughly
purifying them for Himself, and making them most worthy of
His love. In the Cherubim, who have a name for fullness
of knowledge, we may perceive that the Lord is a God of
knowledge, who only knoweth all things, and in Him is no
ignorance at all ; who is altogether light, and in Him is
no darkness at all ; 4 who is all eye, and who cannot possibly
be deceived, because that eye is never closed ; who seeks not
outside Himself for light which He may approach that He
may see, for He sees in the light of His own Being. In the
Thrones we may behold how the Judge, trusted by all that is
innocent, sits in them ; He who will not deceive, and cannot

1 Ps. xxvii. 4. 2 Rom. xii. 2.

3 Hos. xi. 3, Exod. xix. 4, &c. 4 I John, i. 5.

Book V, Chapter iv 141

be deceived, inasmuch as He loves, as has been said, and
sees, as has been said. Nor is this His sitting without
significance ; it indicates tranquillity. May my sentence go
forth from such a presence l where love is found, but no error,
no confusion ! In the Dominions we may see how majestic
is the Lord, who at His pleasure establishes His empire, that
empire which is as wide as the universe and shall endure for
ever. In the Principalities we may perceive the fount of all
things ; as a door turns on its hinge, so the universe depends
on the King Himself. In the Powers we may see how power
fully the First Cause protects those over whom He rules, keep
ing off and driving back the hostile powers. In the Virtues
we may see everywhere equally present that one Virtue through
which are all things, life-giving, active, invisible, unmovable,
yet moving all things for beneficial ends, and holding them
in its grasp. When this Virtue breaks forth into effects less
familiar amongst men, we hear of miracles or prodigies.
Lastly, as we contemplate the Angels and Archangels, we
may see, and marvel, how true it is in our experience that
He careth for us ; 3 He who never ceases to delight us with
the visits of such glorious beings, to instruct us with their
revelations, admonish us through their suggestions, solace us
by their zealous attention.

CHAPTER V
God is the Source of Angelic Gifts and Graces

1 1 . All these gifts and graces were bestowed on these
spirits by their Creator, one and the self-same Spirit dividing

1 P$. xvii. 7. 2 i Pet. v. 7.

142 On Consideration

to them severally as He willed. It is He who worketh them
in His creatures, it is He who has given to His creatures the
power of working them, but in different ways. The Seraphim
burn, but with the fire of God, or rather with fire for God.
Their chief characteristic is their love, but they love not as
much, nor in the same way, as God. The Cherubim shine,
and excel in knowledge, but by participation in the truth ;
and accordingly they know not as the Truth knows, nor as
much. The Thrones sit, but by the favour of Him who
sitteth in them. They also tranquilly judge, but not so fully,
nor in the same way, as the Peace that giveth peace, the Peace
which passes all understanding. The Dominions rule, but
they rule in subjection to a ruler, and serve Him as well.
What is this in comparison with the supreme, everlasting,
unparalleled dominion ? The Principalities lead and govern ;
but they themselves are governed : so that they would no
longer know how to govern, if they ceased to be governed.
In the Powers there is surpassing strength ; but He to whom
they owe their strength has more strength, and of a different
kind: He is not so much strong, as strength itself. The
Virtues, in accordance with their ministry and their might, are
busy rousing the sluggish hearts of men by the novelty of
signs ; but it is Virtue itself, immanent in them, that does the
works. They also do them, but in comparison with that
doing they do them not. In short, so great is the difference
that the prophet says to Him, as standing apart from all
others, Thou art God who doest wondrous things, 1 and
also concerning Him, Who alone doeth great and marvellous
things. 2 Angels and Archangels are with us, but He is
more our own who is not only with us but in us.

1 2. But if you say that an Angel may also be in us, I do
1 Ps. Ixxvii. 14. 2 Ps. cxxxvi. 4.

Book V, Chapter v 143

not deny it. I remember that it is written, The Angel who
spake in me. l And yet there is a difference even here.
The Angel is in us suggesting what is good, not bestowing
it : stimulating us to goodness, not creating goodness. God
is so in us as to give the grace, and infuse it into us ; or rather,
so in us that He Himself is infused and partaken of, so
that one need not fear to say that He is one with our spirit,
although He be not one with our person, nor one with our
substance. 2 For you know, * He that is joined unto God is
one spirit. 3 The Angel, therefore, is with the soul, God
is in the soul. The Angel is in the soul as a comrade,
God as life. It follows that as the soul sees in the eyes,
hears in the ears, smells in the nostrils, tastes in the palate,
has the sense of touch in all the rest of the body, so God
worketh different effects in different spirits : for instance, in
some He manifests Himself as love, in others as perception,
in others as action of various kinds, according as the mani
festation of the Spirit is given to every man to profit withal. 4
What are we to think of Him who is so common a topic of
our speech, but who is so far removed from us in reality ?

1 Zcch. i. 14.

* It should be remembered that Pantheism was prevalent all through the
Middle Ages, and that it was not confined to individual thinkers, but was
adopted by considerable communities (sec Flint, Anti-theistic Theories,
P- 357)- St. Bernard may have had in mind the teaching of John Scotus,
who regarded the Deity as the substance of all things. He affirmed the
doctrine of the descent of the Triune God into finite things, not only
with reference to the single instance of the Incarnation, but with reference
to all created things or existences. Our life is God s life in us ... The
knowledge which angels and men have of God is God s revelation of
Himself in them. (Ueberweg, Hist, of Philosophy, vol. i, pp. 362-3).
How far St. Bernard agreed with this, and how far he differed from it, is
clear.

3 i Cor. vi. 17. 4 I Cor. xii. 7.

144 n Consideration

How is it that He whom we describe with mortal words
hides Himself in the depths of His own Majesty, and alto
gether shuns our human forms l and affections ? Hear what
He says to men, As the heavens are higher than the earth,
so are my ways higher than your ways, and my thoughts than
your thoughts/ 2 We are said to love, so is God : we are
said to know, so is God : and much to the same purpose.
But God loves like Charity, knows like Truth, sits in judge
ment like Equity, rules like Majesty, governs like Authority,
guards like Safety, works like Virtue, reveals like Light,
stands by us like Affection. All these things the Angels
also do, and so do we, but in a far inferior way, not, of course,
by our native goodness, but by the goodness whereof we
partake.

CHAPTER VI
The Eternal Self- existence of God

12. Now, then, let us pass from these spirits, if haply you
too may be able to say with the spouse, It was but a little
I passed from them when I found him whom my soul loveth. 3
Do you ask, What is His name ? That is surely not a
better question than What is His character ? The answer
which God wished to be given respecting Himself, the
answer which He Himself taught Moses, and which Moses
at God s command told the people was I am what I am ;
He who is hath sent me unto you . 4 Fitly was this answer
given. Nothing could better describe eternity, and God is
eternal. If you say that God is good, great, blessed, wise,

1 Aspectus. 2 Isa. Iv. 9.

3 Cant. iii. 4. 4 Exod. iii. 14. Vulg.

Book V, Chapter vi 145-

or any such thing, the starting-point is this God is. Of
course, the very meaning of God s existing is that all these
attributes constitute existence. If you add a hundred others
you have not got away from the fact of His existence. By
naming them you have not added anything ; if you do not
name them, you have not diminished aught. If you now per
ceive the nature of this unparalleled, unique, supreme existence,
will you not agree that in comparison thereof whatever is not
included therein may more accurately be said not to exist than
to exist ? Do we ask further, What is God ? We reply,
4 That without which nothing is. We say nothing can exist
without Him, just as He Himself cannot exist without Him
self. He is self-existent. He is existence to all else. And
so, in a certain sense, He is alone, who is the source of His
own existence, and of the existence of all beside. What is
God? The Beginning, 1 as He Himself replied concerning
Himself. In the world of sense many things are called
beginnings, but in respect of things that come after. If,
instead of looking forwards you look backwards, you will
allow Him to be the beginning of all. Wherefore, if you
wish to find the true, unconditioned beginning , you must
discover that which has no beginning. That from which all
began could not possibly have had a beginning. For if it had,
there must of necessity have been some source from which it
sprang, since nothing is self-originating. If it be imagined
that the non-existent 2 could give itself a beginning, or that
something may be before it is, I reply that both these altcrna-

1 St. John viti. 25. The later Latin text, Principium, quia et Inquor
vobis, is what St. Bernard has in mind. Sec Westcott s supplementary
note on this very difficult passage.

2 Non-existent in the seme of that which has absolutely no being, or
mere privation. St. Bernard was familiar with other meanings, philoso
phical and religious, of the non-existent*.

ST. Utk.MAUU

i \6 On Consideration

tives are contrary to reason, and it clearly follows that nothing
was its own beginning. Moreover, whatever had not its
beginning from itself was not the first beginning. The true
beginning, therefore, by no means began, but was altogether
the fount of its own being.

14. What is God ? He for whom the ages have neither
come nor gone, and yet with whom they are not co-eternal.
What is God ? He from whom are all things, through
whom are all things, in whom are all things V From
whom , by creation, not by propagation. 2 Through whom ,
lest you should suppose there is some other author and
some other maker. * In whom , not locally, but potentially.
From whom , as the one beginning, the one author of all.
Through whom , lest some other beginning be brought in
as the originator. In whom , lest a third term, place, be
introduced. From whom , not as though God were the
matter of which things are made ; He is the efficient, not
the material cause. In vain do philosophers look to matter
to solve the difficulty; God has no need of matter. For
He did not seek a workshop, nor an artificer. He, through
Himself, in Himself, made all things. Whence ? Out of
nothing ; for if He made them out of anything, He did not
make that, and therefore did not make all things. God forbid
that out of His own incorrupt and incorruptible substance
He should be thought to have made so many things that are
doubtless good, but are nevertheless corruptible. You ask,
If all things are in God, where is God Himself ? Still,
I find no place which can contain Him. You ask where He
is not ? I cannot tell this either. What place is without

1 Rom. xi. 36.

2 Seminabiliter. Not as the human race from Adam, or the plant from
the seed.

Book V^ Chapter vi 147

God ? God is incomprehensible ; l but you have appre
hended not a little if you have ascertained this much about
Him, that He is nowhere who is not enclosed by space, and
that He is everywhere who is not shut out by space. In
His own sublime and incomprehensible way, as all things
are in Him, so He is in all things. In a word, as the
Evangelist says, He was in the world. 2 But in a different
way He is there, where He was before the world was made.
You must not ask where He was ; except Himself there was
nothing. Therefore He was in Himself.

CHAPTER VII
The Divine Trinity in Unity

15. What is God ? The best object of thought. 3 If you
approve, you ought not to countenance the belief that there
is something which is the essence of Godhead, and yet is not
God. 4 If there were, it would doubtless be better than God.
Must it not of necessity be better than God if it is not God,

1 In modern English, omnipresent. Incomprehensible appears to be
used here as it is in the Creed, and expresses that which cannot be
grasped by, or contained within, any space . St. Bernard s word is not,
however, imrnensus, but incomprehensibilis. A little lower down the
word is used in the sense inconceivable , beyond the grasp of the mind.

2 St. John i. 10.

3 So St. Anselm nearly the greatest object or being that can be
conceived .

4 Gilbert, Bishop of Poictiers, whom St. Bernard opposed at the Council
of Paris, A. D. 1147, and in the following year at the Council of Rheims,
distinguished the divine essence from the Deity, the properties of the three
divine Persons from the Persons themselves, not in reality, but by abstrac
tion. It is this distinction between Dtus and divinitat which St. Ber
nard condemns. Mosheim, iii. p. 79; Ueberweg, Hist. Philosophy, i.
P- MJ-

K 2

148 On Consideration

but constitutes His being ? But it is wiser for us to confess
that the divinity which men say is the essence of God is
the same as God. Unless it be God it cannot be in God.
What , say our opponents, do you deny that God has
divinity ? No ; but what God has, that He is. Do you
deny that God exists in virtue of His divinity ? No ; but
we say that He exists in virtue of no other divinity than that
which He Himself is. If you have discovered some other
divinity, I fall back upon the doctrine of the Tri-une God,
and stiffen my back against your new-found divinity . You
may divide the world into four quarters if you please : you
must not so map out the Godhead. God is a Trinity : God
is each of the three Persons. If you like to add a fourth
divinity, I have already fully convinced myself that no divinity
which is not God ought to be worshipped. I suppose you
think so too : for * thou shalt worship the Lord thy God,
and Him only shalt thou serve . l That is truly a glorious
divinity which dare not claim for itself divine honours. But
we do better in rejecting the fourth term altogether than in
receiving it without due honour. We say that there are many
things in God it is sound Catholic doctrine but the many are
but one. Otherwise, if we regard them as individually distinct,
we have God not only fourfold, but a hundredfold. For
example, we speak of His greatness, goodness, justice, and
innumerable other attributes ; but unless you consider them all
as one in God, and with God, you will have a manifold God.
1 6. It is not difficult for me to frame a better idea of God
than this of yours. What is your view ? you say. I regard
God as absolute simplicity. 2 A sound judgement prefers

1 St. Matt. iv. 10, St. Luke iv. 8.

2 In the sense of singleness. The supreme unity , the simplest
unity of all, are perhaps equivalent phrases.

Book V, Chapter vii 149

simplicity of nature to that which is manifold. I know the
usual answer to this. We maintain , say they, 4 that the
many attributes do not constitute the being of God, but only
one divinity composed of them all. You assert, then, that
although God is not manifold, He is twofold, and you have
not reached the highest conception of God as absolute sim
plicity. That is as far from being simple which involves
even one form, 1 as she is no longer a virgin who is known
to even one man. I speak freely ; even a twofold God shall
not be my God : I have a better one. Suppose I do prefer
a twofold Divine Being to a God multitudinous and manifold;
I nevertheless utterly despise such a God in comparison with
a God of a * simple nature. My God is none other than
what He is in the catholic sense. We must not institute
a comparison between what He includes and excludes. He is
what He is. We are not told all that He is. He is pure spirit,
simple, complete in Himself, self-consistent, adding nothing to
Himself from time, place, material things, losing nothing of
Himself in them; incapable of numerical division, and not com
posed of several parts to make a collective whole. For He is
a unit, not a union. He has no corporeal parts like our bodies ;
no different affections, like our souls ; He is not susceptible
of many * forms , like all creation ; nor does He assume even

1 In the philosophy of Aristotle the principle of form or essence was
the substitute for the Platonic idea. Form may be defined as that which
exists in itself and for itself. Combined with matter it constitutes indi
vidual existences, the form of the thing being the actual nature it
possesses. God was regarded as pure form without matter, the imma
terial and eternal form, the pure Actuality in which is no potentiality,
the self-thinking Reason, or absolute Spirit. Form* is also regarded as
equivalent to species, a substantial part of the genus, or the substantial
unity of the individuals included in the species, and sometimes as the
differentia, by the addition of which the materia becomes a ipecies. See
Ucberwcg, Hist, of Phil., &c.

i y o On Consideration

one form, as our opponents conceive of * form . Surely God is
greatly to be praised for that He is content with one form ,
so that He may exempt Himself from all deformity. This is
equivalent to saying that the nature of all else is conditioned
in many ways, but that God s nature is absolute. What ?
Will He, through whose goodness all things exist, stoop for
His being to the goodness of another ? That praise, to use
a common expression, means blasphemy. Is it not higher
excellence to need nothing than to need one thing ? Have
reverence for God, so that you may give Him the best. If
your heart has been able to rise to this level, how will you
place your God lower down ? He is His own form ,* His
own essence. For a while I look up to Him at this eleva
tion ; if a higher rank were revealed to me, I would rather
give it to Him. We surely need not fear that thought will
soar above Him. However high it may attain, He is still
beyond. To look for the Most High beneath the summit
of man s thought is absurd ; to place Him there is impious.
He must be sought beyond it, not on this side of it.

17. Ascend thus far if you can; lift up your heart, and
God will be exalted. God is not dependent on form. He
is pure form. 2 God is not a feeling, He is a state of feeling ;
He is not compound, but absolute simplicity ; and you know
full well what I mean by simplicity : the word is synony-

1 It must be borne in mind that Gilbert, St. Bernard s antagonist,
advanced the doctrine of native forms. John of Salisbury thus sums
up the doctrine est autem forma nativa originalis exemplum, et quae
non in mente Dei consistit, sed rebus creatis inhaeret. It was related to
the idea in the mind of God as the exemplum to the exemplar. In
sensible or natural things form and matter are united : the forms do not
exist as native forms apart from things, but with them. In God, who is
pure form without matter, the archetypes of material things (corporum
fxemplaria} exist as eternal, immaterial forms.

8 See note above.

Book V, Chapter vii 1 5 1

mous with unity. In proportion as God is one, He is simple.
Now He is one in such a sense as nothing else is. If the
phrase be permissible, He is most of all one. 1 There is one
sun as no other can be ; one moon also, as no other can be.
So it is with God, but more so. How more so ? He is
one even to Himself. Would you like a little light upon this ?
He is always the same, and never changes. It is not so with
the one sun, or the one moon. Both proclaim that they are
not one to themselves, the sun because of its movements, the
moon on account of her phases. But God is not only one to
Himself, He is also one in Himself. He has nothing in
Himself but Himself. He knows no change through time,
no difference in His substance. Hence the saying of Boethius 2
concerning Him This is the true unity which is indivisible,
and admits nothing foreign to itself. Nor can this unity be
reduced to " forms ", for it is pure form. 3 Compare with this
unity all that can be called unity ; God s unity will not be
found there. Yet God is Three in One. What follows?
Do we upset what has been said about the Unity by bringing
in the thought of the Trinity ? No ; but we establish the
Unity. We speak of Father, Son, and Holy Spirit ; still
we maintain there are not three Gods, but one God. What,
if I may so speak, is the meaning of this number which is not
a number ?

If there are three particulars, must there not be numerical
distinction ? If there is but one, what becomes of the enumera
tion ? But I have, you say, something that can be numbered,
and yet not numbered. There is one substance, there are

1 Unissimus.

2 The famous Latin philosopher and statesman, beheaded A. D. 526
for opposing Arianism. The passage is to be found in the Basle Edition
of his works (1570), p. 1 1 23.

3 That is, Joes not allow of division into sptcits. See above.

if 2 On Consideration

three Persons. Is there anything strange or obscure in this ?
Nothing, if the persons are conceived of separately from the
Substance. The truth is that, inasmuch as the three Persons
are one Substance, and the one Substance is the three Persons,
there is no denying that we do number them, for they are
really three ; yet on the other hand we do not number them,
for they are really one. If, again, you think an easy explana
tion is found by calling them three, tell me what it is you
have numbered. Natures ? There is one nature. Essences ?
There is one essence. Substances ? There is one substance.
Godheads ? There is one Godhead. I do not number
these , you say, but the Persons, and they are not that one
nature, that one essence, that one substance, that one divinity.
You are a Catholic ; you are not in the least likely to make
such a concession.

CHAPTER VIII

The plurality of Persons in the Godhead, and
their several properties . The unity and
simplicity of the Essence

1 8. The Catholic Faith confesses that the properties of
the Persons are identical with the Persons themselves ; and
that the Persons themselves are nothing else than one God, one
Divine Substance, one Divine Nature, one Divine and Supreme
Majesty. Number, therefore, if you can, either the Persons
without the Substance, which they themselves are, or the
characteristics without the Persons with whom they are iden
tical. Or, if any one endeavour to separate the Persons from
the Substance, or the characteristic attributes from the Per-

Book V, Chapter vi ii 15-3

sons, I am at a loss to understand how he can profess to
be a worshipper of the Trinity after dividing the Godhead
into such a vast multitude of particulars. Let us therefore
maintain that there are three Persons, but not to the prejudice
of the Unity : let us hold that there is one God, but not so
as to confound the Trinity ; for these are not mere names,
nor idle words void of meaning. If any one asks how this
can be, let him be content to hold that it is so, though I must
add that if the doctrine be not clear to reason, it is no halting
opinion, but the firm conviction of faith. This is a great
mystery, worthy of all veneration, not to be keenly scrutinized.
How can plurality consist with unity, or unity with plurality ?
To closely examine the fact is rashness, to believe it is piety,
to know it is life, and eternal life. Wherefore, Eugenius, if
you think it worth while, let me have your undivided considera
tion as I run through the many arguments which tend to show
the greatness of this unique unity. There is a unity which
we may call * collective , as, for example, when many stones
make one heap. There is a * constitutive unity, as when many
members make one body, or many parts constitute one whole.
There is a unity such as that of man and wife, whereby
two are no longer two, but one llesh. And there is a
natural unity, whereby soul and body are one man. There
is a * potential unity, the realization of which is the constant
endeavour of a virtuous man, so that he may not be unstable,
nor unlike himself. There is the unity of agreement, when
the love of many men leads to their being of one heart and
one soul. There is also the unity of devotion, when the soul,
ck-aung to God with complete surrender, is one spirit. And
there is the unity of condescension, whereby our poor nature
was taken by the Word of God to make one person in Himself.
19. But what arc all these compared with that supreme, and,

i f 4 @ n Con sidera tion

so to speak, unique unity which results from the consubstan-
tiality of the three Persons ? If you find a likeness between
any one of the foregoing and this unity, the resemblance is
but partial ; if you compare them with it, there will be no true
resemblance. Therefore, among all things which are rightly
called One , the unity of the Trinity, whereby three Persons
are one Substance, is the highest. Next comes that surpassing
unity, whereby, conversely, three substances are in Christ, one
Person. Moreover, real sober consideration proves that the
foregoing, and whatsoever else can be called One , have the
title in virtue of their resemblance to that supreme Unity, not
because they allow of comparison therewith. Nor do we
forsake this profession of the Unity by our upholding of the
doctrine of the three Persons, since, when we speak of the
Trinity, we do not mean a multiplicity of gods any more
than in speaking of unity we imply loneliness. Wherefore,
when I speak of One I am not disturbed by the consideration
of number, which does not multiply the essence, nor change
it, nor divide it. Again, when I speak of three things, if
I view them as one, whatever the three things may be, I am
not proved wrong. Nor, if I speak of the three Persons
of the Godhead, am I obliged to confound the Persons, or
reduce the three to the One.

CHAPTER IX

As in God there are three Persons and one
Nature : so in Christ there are two Natures
and one Person
20. My views, I confess, are similar respecting the unity

which I have ranked next in honour to that which is unique.

Book / 7 , Chapter ix 1 5- 5-

I say that in Christ the Word, the human soul and body, are
without confusion of the essences one Person, and I further
maintain that the human and divine remain numerically dis
tinct without prejudice to the unity of person. Nor would
I deny that this unity is of the same class as that unity whereby
soul and body are one man. It was fitting that a mystery
devised for man s welfare should have a more intimate relation
to man s nature and more closely resemble it. It was fitting,
too, that it should harmonize with that highest unity which is
in God and is God, so that as three Persons in the Trinity
are one Essence, so in the Incarnation, by a most appropriate
contrast, the three Essences are one Person. Do you not see
how beautifully the unity of Christ is set between the unity of
God and the unity of man ? I mean, of course, the unity of
the Mediator between God and man, the man Christ Jesus.
Most beautiful, most appropriate, I say, that the mystery of
salvation should so fitly correspond to both, to God our
Saviour on the one side, to saved humanity on the other.
Thus this unity of the two natures, standing between the
other two unities, must be pronounced inferior to the one and
superior to the other, being as much above the lower as it is
below the higher.

21. In a word, so closely and so clearly are the natures
united in the Person of the one Christ, who is God and Man,
that you can without error in speaking of them use either mode
of expression, and with the true Catholic Faith l declare both
that God was man and man was God. But you cannot, with
out sheer absurdity, similarly assert either that the soul is the
body, or the body the soul, although in like manner soul and
body is one man. And it is not surprising if the soul, with all

1 So Hooker on the Communicatio idiomatum, Ecc. Pol., Bk v. liii.
3,4

i f 6 On Consideration

its vital energy, considerable though it is, and notwithstanding
its affections, cannot so closely bind the body to itself as the
Divinity united to itself that man who was predestined to
be the Son of God with power. 1 The divine predestina
tion is a long and strong chain for binding close : for it
reaches from the Eternal. What is longer than eternity ?
What more mighty than Deity ? Hence it is that this unity
could not possibly be severed by death, although soul and body
were separated from one another. And perhaps John felt this
when he professed himself unworthy to undo the latchet of
His shoe. 2

CHAPTER X
The Parable of the three Measures of Meal

22. We remember the three measures in the Gospel, which
were mixed and leavened to make one loaf. 3 If any one were
to apply the parable to the mystery of the Incarnation I should
think he was not far wrong in so doing. How well the
woman leavened them ! And so, in the parallel, without
dividing the body and soul, the Word was distinct from the

1 Rom. i. 4.

2 St. Mark i. 7. In the mystical theology the shoe was taken to
denote the humanity of Christ, which the Baptist confessed himself un
worthy to serve, bear upon his shoulder, or carry in his hands . Unde
S. Bernardus : Calceo, ait, hnmanitatis nostrae calceata fuit Verbi mate
stas ; quia enim calceamenta in extrema corporis parte sunt, et ex mortuis
fiunt animalibus, idcirco iuxta S. Gregorium et S. Hieronymum in Marci
cap. i. 7 recte significant incarnationem Christi, quam se explicare non
posse, nee ad hoc dignum esse hie confitetur S. loannes. A Lapide,
Comm. on St. Matt. iii. II.

3 St. Matt. xiii. 33, St. Luke xiii. 21.

Book V, Chapter x if?

body and sod, yet so that in the separation the inseparable
union was maintained. For the partial separation is no ob
jection against the unity which remained between all three.
Whether two of the three were conjoined or dissevered, the
personal unity none the less continued in all three. The one
Christ and one Person, the Word, soul and body, remained
just the same even after the death of the man Christ Jesus.
In my opinion this mingling and leavening took place in the
Virgin s womb ; she was the woman who mixed and leavened
the three measures. For I should not, perhaps, err greatly in
saying that the leaven was Mary s faith. She was clearly
blessed in believing, since the things which were told her by
the Lord were accomplished in her. 1 But they would not
have been accomplished if anything had hindered the whole
from being leavened, and continually leavened, according to
the word of the Lord, so as to preserve for us, as well in His
death as in His life, the one perfect Mediator between God and
man, the man Christ Jesus in union with His own Godhead.
23. In this admirable mystery, corresponding to the number
of the measures, we may observe, most beautifully distin
guished, the three steps of the new, the old, and the eternal.
By the new I mean the soul, which is believed to be created
out of nothing when it is infused into the body ; by the old ,
the jlcsh, which we know to have been transmitted even from
Adam, the first of human kind ; by the eternal , I mean the
Word, whom, as a certain truth, we assert to be co-eternal with
the Father, and to be begotten of Him. And in the fore
going, if you carefully notice, there is a triple exhibition of
Divine power, inasmuch as then.- was something made out
of nothing, the new out of the old, the eternally blessed
out of that which was sentenced to death. How docs this
1 St. Luke i. 45.

iy8 On Consideration

concern our salvation ? Much every way. Firstly, because,
reduced to nothing through sin, we are through the mystery
as it were created anew, that we may be a sort of first fruits of
His creatures. 1 Secondly, because, translated from our old
slavery into the liberty of the children of God, we walk in
newness of the spirit. Lastly, because we have been called
from the power of darkness to the kingdom of the eternal
glory, wherein He has already made us to sit with Him in
Christ. May they be no friends of ours who endeavour to
estrange from us the flesh of Christ, impiously asserting that
it was newly created in the Virgin, not taken from the Virgin.
Well did the Spirit of Prophecy long before meet this opinion,
or rather blasphemy of wicked men, when He said, A shoot
shall spring from the root of Jesse, and a flower out of his
root. 2 He might have said that the flower should come
from the shoot, but He preferred to say from the root , that
He might show the flower and the shoot to have the same
origin. So we see that the flesh was taken thence whence
the Virgin sprang; it was not newly created in the Virgin,
but came from the root.

CHAPTER XI
The consideration of God continued

24. I suspect you are a little vexed at my again asking,
What is God? The question has already been asked so
often, and you are doubtful whether the answer will ever be
found. Dear Eugenius, Father in God, what I say is this
He alone is God who never can be sought in vain, not even

1 James i. 18. 8 Isa. xi. i.

Book V^ Chapter xi 15-9

when He cannot be found. Your experience may teach you
this ; or, if not, believe one who has had the experience ; I do
not mean myself, but the saint who says, Thou art good,
O Lord, to them that hope in Thee, to the soul that seeketh
Thee. 1 What, then, is God? As regards the universe,
He is the final end ; in respect of election, He is salvation ;
as regards Himself, He is self-knowledge. What is God ?
He is almighty will moved by loving-kindness, virtue, eternal
light, incommunicable reason, highest blessedness ; He is the
creator of minds to enjoy Himself ; He endows them with
life to perceive Him, disposes them to long for Him, enlarges
them to receive Him, justifies them to be worthy of Him,
fires them with zeal, fertilizes them that they may bear fruit,
guides them into sweet reasonableness, moulds them to loving-
kindness, regulates them for wisdom, strengthens them for
virtue, visits them for consolation, illuminates them for know
ledge, preserves them for immortality, fills them for happiness,
is about their path for safety.

CHAPTER XII

God the rewardev of the good, and the righteous
judge of the wicked

25. What is God ? No less the punishment of the per
verse than the glory of the humble. We may say He is
reason and sweet reasonableness directing itself with fixed
unchanging aim, and everywhere operative. Any ]>erversity
in collision with that must of necessity be confounded. Of
course, all swelling pride and unseemliness which dashes itself
against that must be broken to shivers. Woe to all creation if

1 Lain. iii. ^.

160 On Consideration

it chance to get in the way of unbending righteousness ! for
that righteousness is strength. There is no more deadly foe
of wills wickedly disposed than to be for ever attempting, ever
in conflict, and all in vain.

Woe to wills opposed ! Surely they only bring upon
themselves the penalty of their own reluctance. What
penalty is so severe as to be ever choosing what shall
never be, ever refusing what shall never cease to be? Is
there any hell like a will under this necessity of choosing
and refusing, so that whichever way it moves misery must be
as constant an attendant as perversity ? As long as eternity
shall last it will not get its choice ; and what it refuses it
shall no less through eternity endure. And such a will meets
with its due deserts ; he who is never disposed for what
becomes him, should never attain to what delights him. Who
doth this? The righteous Lord our God, who with the per
verse also shows Himself perverse. Straight and crooked can
never agree, for these are contrary one to the other, though
they do not injure one another. One of the two is injured ;
it cannot be God. It is hard for thee , He says, * to kick
against the goad : * that is, not hard for the goad, but hard
for him who kicks. God is also the punishment of the base,
for He is light ; and what is so hateful to filthy and degraded
minds ? Surely, Every one that doeth evil hateth the light. 2
But I say, will they not be able to shun the light ? Not
in the least. It shines everywhere, though not to all. In
a word, it shineth in darkness, and the darkness comprehends
it not. 3 The light sees the darkness, for with it seeing and
shining are the same thing ; but it is not in turn seen by the
darkness, because the darkness comprehends it not. They,
then, are seen that they may be confounded ; and they do not
1 Acts ix. 5. a St. John iii. 20. 3 St. Johu i. 5.

Book V, Chapter xii 161

see that they may not be consoled. Nor are they seen only
by the light ; they are also seen in the light. By what person
or persons ? By every one who sees, so that the greater the
number of beholders the greater may be their confusion. But
out of the whole multitude of the spectators there is no eye
more troublesome to a man than his own. There is no glance,
whether in heaven or on earth, which a benighted conscience
would rather escape, or is less capable of escaping. The
darkness is not hidden even from itself; though it sees naught
else, it sees itself. The works of darkness follow it, and
there is no hiding-place from it, not even in the darkness.
This is the worm that dieth not l the memory of the past.
Once it gets within, or rather is born within through sin,
there it stays, and never by any means can be plucked out.
It never ceases to gnaw the conscience ; feeding on it as on
food that never can be consumed it prolongs the life of misery.
I shudder as I contemplate this biting worm, this never-dying
death. I shudder at the thought of being the victim of this
living death, this dying life.

26. This is the second death, which never kills, but is
always killing. Will no one grant them to die once for all
that they may not evermore be dying ? They who say to
the mountains, * Fall on us, and to the hills, cover us, 2 what
do they desire but to put an end to death by the kindness of
death, or to escape from it ? In short, they will call upon
death, and death will not come. 3 I would have you see thi^
clearly. It is certain that the soul is immortal, and so long
as it has life it must have memory; for otherwise it might
some day cease to be the soul. So then, while the soul
lasts, memory also lasts. But what is memory like ? It is

1 Isa. l.xvi. 24 ; St. Mark ix. 48. 2 St. Luke xxiii. 30.

3 Apoc. ix. 6.

ST. BEJtNAHO j

1 62 On Consideration

burdened with foul disgrace, horrid crimes, swelling vanity ;
through scorning (the better part) it is like a field rough and
neglected. These former things have passed away, and have
not passed away. They are out of hand, but not out of
mind. What has been done cannot be undone; the doing
was in time, but the effect of the doing will be eternal.
That does not pass with time which passes all times. The
wrong-doing that you remember for ever must therefore for
ever be a torment. This will be to realize the truth of the
words, I will reprove thee and set before thine eyes what
thou hast done. * It is the Lord who thus spoke ; all
that opposes Him must of necessity oppose itself ; so that at
last there will be the complaint, O thou watcher of men,
why hast thou set me as a mark for thee, so that I am
a burden to myself? 2 These are the facts, Eugenius.
Nothing can contradict God and be consistent with itself;
on the contrary, whosoever shall be reproved by God shall
be reproved also by himself. When the soul is torn from
the body, and stands self-centred, it will be no longer possible
for reason to disguise the truth, or for the soul to shun the
searching insight of reason. How can it do so when the
senses, by means of which, as we know, it was wont to sally
forth to gratify its curiosity, and, leaving itself, would find
a home in that fashion of the world which passeth away, are
sealed up in the slumber of death ? Do you see that nothing
is wanting to complete the confusion of the filthy whet
they shall be brought forth as a spectacle to God, to angel
to men, to themselves ? How lamentable is the lot of
bad men, who must undoubtedly face this torrent of simj
equity, and stand exposed to the light of unveiled truth
Is not this to be for ever beaten, and to be for ever con-
1 Ps. 1. 21. 2 Job vii. 20.

Book V, Chapter xii 163

founded ? Break them with a double breach, O Lord our
God , 1 saith the prophet.

CHAPTER XIII

The mystical interpretation of the length a) id
breadth, and height, and depth

27. What is God? Length, breadth, height, and depth.
What? you say. You do, after all, profess to believe
in the fourfold Godhead which was an abomination to you.

Not in the least. I abominated, and still abominate it.
I may have seemed to express a number of things : I really
indicated one. God is designated One to suit our compre
hension, not to describe His character ; His character is
capable of division, He Himself is not. The words are
different, the paths are many, but one thing is signified ; the
paths lead to one Person. No divisions of the Substance are
expressed in that fourfold enumeration ; no dimensions, such
as we contemplate in bodily structures ; no distinction of
Persons, such as we adore in the Trinity ; there is no
enumeration of properties such as we confess to be inherent
in the Persons, though they are no way distinguishable from
the Persons. Moreover, in God each of these is what the
four are all together ; and the four are just what each one
is. We cannot attain to the full conception of the simplicity
of God ; hence it is that while we strive to apprehend the
Unity, it \ -esents itself to us as fourfold. This is the
result of our seeing darkly as in a mirror, the only way for
the present of seeing God at all. But when we shall see

1 Jcr. xvii. 1 8.
I. 2

i tf 4 On Consideration

face to face, \ve shall see Him as He is. 1 When that
blessed time shall come, the poor, weak blade of our in
tellect, however hard it may strike, will not recoil, or be
broken to shivers. It will rather concentrate itself, and
will conform itself to His unity, or rather to that Unity, so
that we shall have one face corresponding to His one face.
For we shall be like Him, for we shall see Him as He
is . Blessed Vision ! well might he sigh for it who said,
My face hath sought thee : thy face, O Lord, will I
seek/ 2 And as our business is still to seek Him, let us
for the present, inasmuch as we are weak and faint, and
sorely need such a conveyance, let us mount this four-horse
chariot, 3 if haply we may thus lay hold of that for which
we have been laid hold of, that is to say, the plan and
working of the vehicle itself. For this admonition have
we from the charioteer himself, who was the first to show
us the chariot that we strive to comprehend with all saints
what is the length, and breadth, and height, and depth . 4
Comprehend , he says, not know : so that, not content
with the curiosity of knowledge 6 we may with all eagerness
1 ook for the fruit. The fruit is not to be found in knowledge,
but in comprehension. 6 Besides, to him who knoweth to
do good, and doeth it not/ 7 as a certain one tells us, it
is sin ; Paul also elsewhere says, So run that ye may

1 i Cor. xiii. 12 ; I John iii. 2. 2 Ps. xxvii. 8.

3 That is, the length, breadth, depth, and height.

4 Eph. iii. 18.

5 Some persons study to know only to know that is curiosity.
Burkitt.

6 Compare Olshausen That comprehensive knowledge of essentials
which by implication knows everything, and which St. John describes as
the anointing of the Spirit which teaches everything.

7 Jas. iv. 17.

Book V, Chapter xiii 165

comprehend/ * I will point out lower down the meaning of
comprehending.

28. What then is God? He is length, I say; and what
is length ? It is eternity. This is so long that it has no end
either in place or time. He is also breadth. And what
is breadth ? It is love. What bounds shall we set to the
love of God, who hateth none of those things which He
hath made ? In fact, * He maketh his sun to rise upon the
good and the bad, and sendeth rain upon the just and unjust. 2
So then there is room in the Divine bosom for God s ene
mies also. And not satisfied with this, God s love compasses
the infinite. It exceeds not only affection, but knowledge
as well, for the Apostle goes on to speak of * knowing the
love of Christ which passeth knowledge . 3 What more shall
I say ? It is eternal ; or, to go a step further, I may perhaps
say that it is eternity, You see that the breadth is as great
as the length. Would that you saw not only that they are
equal, but that they are identical ; that they are one and the
same thing ; no less one than two, no more two than one ! God
is eternity, God is love ; He is length without extension,
breadth without distension. In both cases alike He exceeds
the narrow limits of space and time, but in virtue of His
unfettered nature, not through the vastness of His substance.
In such wise He is immeasurable 4 who hath made all things
by measure; and although He be immeasurable, His very
immensity must be thus * measured . 5

29. Once more, what is God ? He is height and
depth. In the one He is above all things, in the other

1 I Cor. ix. 24. So run that ye may fully obtain* Vulg. comfrehen-
datis.

2 St. Matt. v. 45. s Eph. iii. 19. * Immensu$.
5 In more modern language conditioned.

1 66 On Consideration

He is below all things. It is clear that in the Godhead
there is no halting inequality; the Godhead stands firmly
fixed, immovably self-consistent. Consider height as
corresponding to the Divine power, depth to the Divine
wisdom. There is a correspondence no less between these
two than between the former two, if we perceive that this
height is unapproachable, this k depth unsearchable. Paul
marvelled as he cried aloud, O the depth of the riches of
the wisdom and knowledge of God ! how unsearchable are
his judgments, and his ways past finding out ! ] We too,
as we contemplate both these attributes in God, and their
perfect unity with God ; may with Paul exclaim, O powerful
wisdom, reaching from one end of the world to the other
with full strength ! O wise power, ordering all things
sweetly ! 2 The thing is one, the effect is manifold, the
operations are diverse. And that one thing is length
because it is eternity ; breadth because it is love ; height
because it is majesty ; depth because it is wisdom.

CHAPTER XIV

MS hat it is to comprehend* God

30. We know these things. We surely do not suppose
that we have therefore comprehended them. It is not
argument that comprehends them, but holiness, if at least
that can any way be comprehended which is incomprehensible.
But unless its comprehension were possible, the Apostle
would not have said, That we may comprehend with all

1 Rom. xi. 33. 2 Wisd. of Sol. viii. I.

Booh / , Chapter xiv 167

Saints/ 1 The Saints, therefore, comprehend. Do you ask
how ? If you are holy you have comprehended, and know ;
if you are not, be holy and you shall know by your own
experience. Holy affection makes a man holy, and that
a twofold affection : the holy fear of the Lord, and holy
love. When the soul is perfectly possessed by these, it
4 comprehends as it were with its two arms, embraces, draws
close, holds tight, and says, I have held Him fast, and will
not let Him go ; * Fear corresponds to height and
depth , love to breadth and length . What is so much
to be feared as irresistible power ? as wisdom from which
there is no hiding ? God might have been feared less had
He lacked either. But as things are, you must perfectly
fear Him who neither wants an all-seeing eye, nor an all-
powerful hand. Again, what is so lovable as love itself,
whereby you love and are beloved ? Yet eternity conjoined
with love makes love more lovable ; eternal love never fails,
and it banishes the suspicion that it ever will. Love, there
fore, with perseverance and long-suffering, and the * length
is yours ; extend your love even to your enemies, the
breadth is yours. Fear God with utmost care, and you
have laid hold upon the height and depth .

31. If, moreover, you prefer to respond to the four Divine
attributes with four affections of your own, you may do so
with wonder, fear, zeal, endurance. Most wonderful is the
* height of His Majesty, most worthy to be feared the
abyss 3 of His judgements. Divine love 4 demands your
zeal, the eternity r> of God portrays your constant endurance.

1 Eph. iii. 18. The Revised Version translates apprehend.

2 Cant. iii. 4.

8 , 4 , * These correspond respectively to the Jepth , the breadth , the
length . See above.

id8 On Consideration

Who wonders, but he who contemplates the glory of God ?
Who fears, but he who searches the depth of His wisdom ?
Who glows with zeal, but he who meditates on the love of
God ? Who endures and perseveres in love, but he who
aspires to copy eternal love ? In truth, perseverance is a
sort of likeness here to eternity hereafter. In fact it is
perseverance alone on which eternity is bestowed ; or rather,
it is perseverance which bestows man on eternity; as the
Lord says, He that shall persevere unto the end, the same
shall be saved. 1

32. And now observe how these four represent four
kinds of contemplation. The first and highest form of con
templation is the admiration of the Divine Majesty. If the
heart be cleansed, free from vice, and relieved of the burden
of its sins, it may hereby be easily raised to things above ;
the admiring soul may sometimes also for brief intervals be
even kept entranced with wonder and amazement. The
second must attend the first, for it beholds the judgements of
God. It may violently shock the beholder with the fearful
vision, but it puts vice to flight, firmly bases virtue, initiates
in wisdom, preserves humility. For humility is a good sound
foundation of the virtues. If humility, forsooth, be insecure,
the whole structure of the virtues is nothing but a ruin.
The third kind of contemplation is busy with, or rather
leisurely surveys, past benefits; it would not send a man
away with ingratitude in his heart, and therefore asks for
such an one as is mindful of the love of the benefactor.
Concerning such the prophet says to the Lord, They shall
utter the memory of thy great goodness. * The fourth kind,
forgetting the things that are behind, 3 rests in the expectation
of the promises alone; inasmuch as it is meditation on
1 St. Matt. xxiv. 13. 2 Ps. cxlv. 7. 3 Phil. iii. 13.

Book T 7 , Chapter xiv 169

eternity, for the things promised are eternal, it fosters a spirit
of long-suffering, and gives strength to perseverance. It is
now easy, I suppose, to adapt these four to the four in the
Apostle s list ; meditation on the promises coincides with the
4 length , the remembrance of benefits with the breadth ,
the contemplation of God s Majesty with the * height , the
consideration of His judgements with the depth . He should
have been further sought who is not yet found to the satisfy
ing of our souls, nor can be sought enough. But perhaps
He is more worthily sought through prayer than through
dialectics, and more easily found. With this let us end the
book but not our search for Him.

171

ADDITIONAL NOTES

ADDITION TO NOTE 2, PAGE 104.

This passage of St. Bernard respecting the two swords was
incorporated, almost literally, by Pope Boniface VIII in his
famous Bull, Unam Sanctam, A.D. 1302. But the Pope ad
vances considerably on the Saint when he says, * One sword
ought to be inferior to the other sword, and the temporal
authority to be subject to the spiritual power (Oportet autem
j Indium esse sub gladio* et temporalem spiritual! subici potts t at t).
Bellarmin (De Romano Pontifice, Bk. v, c. 5) finds no refer
ence in St. Luke s words to the Pope s having the two swords
by the appointment of Christ. He adds: The Blessed
Bernard and Pope Boniface mystically interpreted the passage;
they did not mean to say that the Pope had both swords in the
same way, but in different ways, as we shall afterwards explain/

ADDITION TO NOTE i, PAGE 107.

St. Bernard s protest was sadly needed. A child of live
years old was made Archbishop of Rheims. The see of Nar-
bonne was purchased for another at the age of ten. It was
almost universal to have bishops under twenty years old/ In
the Eastern Church Theophylact. at the age of sixteen, became
Patriarch of Constantinople, being installed in his office by
legates of Pope John XI (A.D. 933).

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